Month: May 2013

Click

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i click on the red callout box
coming from the blue world
on the blue banner
i forget
is zuckerberg’s.

i select the notification
and wait
for the page to load.

i scroll and
see your name
and yours
and even yours
with a message
for me
to be happy
on my birthday.

i smile
and i click
again
and i smile
again.

should i thank
zuckerberg?

you kept me
clicking all
day, smiling
all day,
but now
it’s tomorrow.

there is no red
on the blue banner.
but i know
i can click on my name
next to home
next to the blue world.

i scroll down screens
upon screens.
my smiles remember
the one day
in may
what the clicks
really mean.

One of Those Situations Where I Absolutely Kill It

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A nice young man leads me behind the checkout desk toward the director’s office. I see she’s on the phone, but she waves me in and motions for me to sit down.

I try to tune out her conversation, but I can’t help internalizing an offer to help the person on the other end of the line. At the same time I try to take in details of her office without looking nosy.

She has books, of course. She has big plants. I like that.

She wears an olive green dress. I wear an olive green skirt. I wear brown shoes. She wears brown shoes and brown stockings. Fun coincidence, but I think it’s one of those unspoken connections.

She introduces herself and describes the interview process. She explains what the questions entail and asks if I’m ready to begin. I rub my hands together and say let’s go.

I sort of don’t believe that I rubbed my hands together. But it happened.

She starts out with questions like what do I do for fun, what role do librarians play today, what are my passions.

She asks about my leadership and  teamwork experience. What qualities make a good leader? A good team member?

She asks why I want to pursue a master’s degree in library science.

I elaborate on all the answers to these questions.

My armpits give away my nervousness and adrenaline levels. Thanks a lot, armpits.

As I give examples in my answers and talk in paragraphs, which is something I generally don’t do in everyday conversation because most of the time I talk in sound bites and snide remarks, she nods and gives affirming feedback. This encourages me. I feel I could keep talking.

Throughout our conversation, I catch how her eyes agree with my answers and the momentum I gain carries me through to the end.

She makes me feel as if I’m already a librarian.

We make good time. She says I’m doing a terrific job. She wraps up the interview and asks if I have any questions for her. I listen to her describe the timeline for the different tracks within the program. She talks about getting me involved in networking and conferences and I wonder if I should have worn a darker shirt. A black one, because I can’t stop sweating. The anxiety about sweating makes more sweat. We know how it works.

She said that I seemed really in tune with what the program is about, and that she would strongly or highly recommend me. She says that I seem a perfect fit, and I say it feels pretty good. She’s pleased.

Then I ask her what her favorite part of her career has been.

This is a nice way to end an interview for me because I get to hear someone talk about a career she loves. In this particular situation, we both finish confidently.

Thanks to those who answered polls about whether I should pursue an MLS or an MFA (though the MFA may still be in the future) and about times where I have been a good team member. All of you were extremely helpful.

Thanks to those who have supported me in whatever decisions I make even though it takes me years to make up my mind.

Thanks also to Reilly for taking the day off to drive and give moral support, as well as setting off the alarm at the library where I interviewed by bringing a book from a different library. That was great.

Now, it’s just a matter of waiting to see if I get in. I don’t mind waiting.

Object Lessons and Objections

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Object lessons are incredibly effective teaching tools, especially in religion.

There’s the one about nailing a board to a wall or a tree. If you put one nail in the board it can still spin around; the board is unstable. But if you put a second nail through the board, the board becomes anchored. This object lesson often taught the importance of the Book of Mormon, the second nail that goes with the Bible.

There’s the one about sticks or pencils. You can break one or two or four at the same time, but if you gather 10 or 15 pencils, they’re much harder to break altogether. This object lesson illustrates the importance of unity or contributing talents or time to a single purpose. Strength in numbers.

An especially popular object lesson is where the glove represents your spirit and your hand represents your body. Without your hand, the glove can’t do anything, but when the glove is on your hand, the glove becomes animated. The combination becomes a living soul.

I remember these object lessons from when I was a child. While they tend to be taught in cycles, my ability to remember them pretty well demonstrates their effectiveness.

Elizabeth Smart recalls an object lesson pertaining to sexual purity. About a used piece of chewing gum. She spoke about it at a conference about sexual trafficking, and the Christian Science Monitor reported the story.

On Facebook over the past few days, many people provided links with important conversations about sexual purity, abstinence education, and reassuring victims of sexual assault that they are not sinners/dirty/impure. Here are a few of the links I happened to click on:

Religion Dispatches

Blogs: Flunking Sainthood

Experimental Theology

I’ve read these articles and many of the accompanying comments. Being a victim of sexual assault, I think back to the object lesson with the chewed gum. I wonder what specific connections I made when I was a young girl. How could I have made sense of my worth when the person who had supposedly “taken away” my virtue was the same person who presented the object lesson at a family home evening nearly 30 years ago? Would I have been able to overcome my confusion without therapy?

That reminds me. Because I am May, and this is my month, I should remind you that May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. Maybe we can come up with different object lessons that help and inspire instead of harm and instill fear.

Another Book I’m Reading

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Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach

I just started reading this, and asterisks twinkle sporadically throughout the text. Because the content is so interesting and the style is so quirky, it’s actually quite hard to not look toward the bottom of the page to see what the asterisks mean.

So far, the book is about eating. Later on, I’m sure the book will also be about pooping, because that’s a part of the “adventures” in the title. I’m currently in a chapter about how organs are very, very nutritious and American culture grimaces at the thought of eating narwhal skin, for example.

But, footnotes. Chapter 3–entitled “Liver and Opinions”–describes an experiment where scientists served children 16- to 29-months different things to taste, for “until kids are around two, you can get them to try pretty much anything.” Among the lowest-accepted items was human hair. An asterisk bedazzled the word hair, so I rushed to read the corresponding footnote and now I have to share it with you. If you’re squeamish, I suggest you ignore it, but if you can detach, here you go:

Compulsive hair-eaters wind up with trichobezoars–human hairballs. The biggest ones extend from stomach into intestine and look like otters or big hairy turds and require removal by stunned surgeons who run for their cameras and publish the pictures in medical journal articles about “Rapunzel Syndrome.” Bonus points for reading this footnote on April 27, National Hairball Awareness Day.

I read that last sentence and felt I’d missed out on serious bonus points. Still, I feel that I shouldn’t be giving myself so much credit for reading a book with so much  gross-out potential, because it’s actually a lot of fun to read. If you’re in the mood for some fun science writing and need a break from dense literature (like I do), check out this book.

Back to reading before dinner.

Blogosphere Inquiry

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I posted this on Facebook, where I will probably get more responses, but I’ll post it here, too, in case there are people who aren’t on Facebook who know me and would like to respond. I hope by appealing to a people with whom I have worked in groups I can zero in on areas of teamwork that I need to improve. Because there are always things I want to improve.

Self-inventorying here and asking a huge favor of those who want to help. Please list ways I have been a team player. In your examples, identify strengths and weaknesses in my group work. Go back to elementary school, girls camp, whatever your experience with me has been. Be as specific as possible. You may send a private message or email if you’re more comfortable responding that way.

Thanks, I owe you a cookie.
Love, May

Your responses can be very useful to me, as I am more naturally introverted and work hard to find different ways to make it look easy to go beyond myself. Maybe I will list responses as part of another blog post and the introspection will deepen and I will reemerge better than I was before. We’ll see.

Sacrament Meeting Today

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A lot goes on in a sacrament meeting in my ward. Babies cry and parents take them out of the room to calm them down. Toddlers toddle in the aisles or between pews. People play games with their smart phone. There are always a lot of announcements and someone is always in the hospital or had a baby or received a mission call. We sustain and release people to and from callings. With everything that happens, we can certainly appreciate the quiet moments during the meeting.

Today, people used the 70-minute block to bear their testimonies of the gospel. We do this every first Sunday of each month. The same things that happen every week in the congregation also happened today. Two rows in front of us, a dad took his fussy son out. I exchanged smiles with a flirty baby while watching a little boy waddle up to the podium to join his father. I caught glimpses of few people sending texts or playing games on phones and tablets.

Everything amused me and at the same time edified me. But in a distracted way. However, I also tried to focus on the meeting. I brought my French hymnbook to church and compared French hymns to their English counterparts. In an effort to learn the names of people in the ward, I wrote down the names of people who bore their testimony. The only people whose names I didn’t know were visitors. I was grateful to be making some progress.

The testimonies themselves were quite impressive. They were heartfelt and inspired. One in particular struck me in a way the others didn’t. The bishopric reminds the congregation that you can come up and bear your testimony as long as you can do it by yourself. Because of this, not many children have born their testimony, at least as long as Reilly and I have been in the ward.

A little girl and her visiting cousin came up to the stand. The cousin bore her testimony first, then the little girl. The little girl had just gotten baptized yesterday, and she expressed her feelings with such confidence and calmness. It occurred to me how virtually sinless she was, and her simple and powerful testimony heightened the spirit in the room. A palpable sweetness swelled and touched my distracted little heart, and tears flowed instantly from my eyes.

Even though this girl wasn’t the first to bear her testimony today, I’m grateful that she set the tone for my Sunday experience. I’m grateful for her example and especially her parents who strive constantly to give happiness to their family.

I hope to have this kind of influence someday.

A Book I’m Reading

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I recently checked out an ebook called, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It has some really interesting ideas about unpredictability and causality. The author expounds on his theories about the Black Swan phenomenon, which I won’t dwell on here.

A few days ago, this quote caught my attention:

“He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors–though never the same error more than once–is more reliable than someone who has never made any.”

I don’t think the author’s calling Christ unreliable, at least if he knows Christ and sin the way Christ knows sin. I think Taleb statement works particularly well here because the Atonement accounts for all mistakes. Because Christ knows what it feels like to make them, he becomes the most reliable person that will ever exist.

Now if we separate Christ from the rest of mortality, I can understand being a little skeptical of a person who has never sinned. Taleb’s premise states that the fragilistas have little to gain because they fear making mistakes, and the ones they do make are huge and destructive and difficult to bounce back from. The antifragile don’t fear mistakes; they thrive on them, and the mistakes they make aren’t as big and they can make more of them. The more mistakes they make, the more they have to gain.

This is a little aspect of the book, but I like it not because it encourages me to make mistakes. It actually supports what I believe on a religious and spiritual basis: Even though I don’t go out of my way to make mistakes, I can rely on the Atonement when I do make them. He already knows all the lessons, and my sins can help me learn them. Taleb emphasizes that reliable people don’t make the same mistake more than once. This is repentance. If what I have to gain from the sins I commit is to become a better person and strengthen my relationship with Christ, that will in turn help me to become more reliable. However, because I won’t or can’t commit all the sins I can’t ever become as reliable as Christ. At least in my finite perspective. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be helpful to others. That doesn’t diminish any meaning or fulfillment my life should have.

Anyway, Antifragile presents some fun philosophy. I enjoy following the author’s thoughts as they wander. Antifragile is a good book because I can allow myself to disagree with some of the author’s ideas. While I haven’t formed full arguments yet, I quite enjoy the inner monologue. Certainly, this book offers a lot of unpredictability through its structure and ideas, and my quasi-formalistic mind can appreciate how the book’s form contributes to its function: As I stumble through ideas I haven’t thought about before, I find myself learning new things. Not necessarily because Taleb lays it all out in the open, but because what he does present helps me tinker the new things with what I already know. That experience alone holds a lot of potential.

That experience is so very easily practical, because we all know that we ought to try to make the best of what we can’t always predict. There’s only so much we can do to prepare. But if we can rely on true sources of strength and love and if we can thrive from volatile circumstances, then we phoenix our way out of any ambush, the ashes. Resurrect in more than one way.

Not sure why I’m reading a 500-page book to explain what I already know. Well, yes I do.

Photos from the Rodriguez Concert

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If you don’t know about the movie or the man, here’s the rundown on both via Wikipedia:

Movie

Man

Seeing the movie piqued my interest in the man and his music. I knew that if he were to ever go on tour and stop in Salt Lake City, I would go.

That’s what happened.

Please note that most of these pictures are blurry because I couldn’t hold the camera steady. Because my arms were stretched high above my head. Because I’m 58 inches tall. Which, on average, is a lot of inches shorter than other people.

IMG_2614

My concert buddy looks good in a soft red glow.

—

IMG_2631

Doors opened at 8. The opening act began at 9. The opening act wasn’t awesome. She performed for 30 minutes, and she seemed aware of her role to occupy spacetime until Rodriguez took the stage.

Also, for some reason I wore my Chacos, and I guess I haven’t completely broken them in, so my feet hurt while standing for four hours even though I thought the Chacos would be comfortable because people hike all day in them and they go on about how wonderful their Chacos are.

Irrelevant to the music, but part of my experience. A tiny part.

—

IMG_2632

When Rodriguez finally took the stage, people cheered and yelled that they love him. At least twice he responded, “I know it’s the drinks, but I love you, too.”

If you’ve seen the movie or listened to his music, his live singing sounds exactly like that. The quality of his voice hasn’t changed since the ’70s, and it’s no wonder that South Africa loved him so much even though the United States had no idea who he was even though he’s from an actual state in this country called Michigan.

Once he sang “Sugar Man” about 1/3 of the crowd left. A lot of them were people who saw the movie. A documentary. Who watches mostly documentaries? People older than 50? It was late, though, and even I was getting tired.

—

IMG_2651

He sang for about an hour and a half. He came out for a short encore, and he was as gracious and humble a person as you ever saw. The real deal.

Free Books to Utah/Salt Lake County Friends

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You guys, we have a lot of books. Some of them are duplicates. Some of them we don’t want.

Here they are. If you can come pick up the books you want, or if I can meet you to give you the books, let me know. Text, email, or call. First come, first served. I am not paying to ship free books.

All books are paperback unless otherwise noted.  As we continue sorting through our books, we’ll probably have more to give away.

Author Title Condition
 

Ancient Prophets

  

Mormon, Editor

  

Le Livre de Mormon – Hardcover Missionary Copy

  

Excellent
Who wouldn’t want one of these, n’est-ce pas?
 

Boccaccio

  

Giovanni

  

Collected Works – Hardcover

  

Excellent
Copyright 1931; has a nice old-book smell.
 

Bradbury

  

Ray

  

Zen in the Art of Writing

  

Good
I annotated and highlighted throughout the book. As writers should. You may discover my secrets.
 

Camus

  

Albert

  

The Stranger (English)

  

Excellent
This will put you in an AMAZING mood of despair!
 

Chabon

  

Michael

  

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

  

Excellent
Best read when wearing a cape.
 

Eco

  

Umberto

  

The Name of the Rose

  

Average
The last name makes me thinks that he writes about the environment. Reilly likes him a lot.
 

Frazier

  

Charles

  

Cold Mountain

  

Good
Did anyone see the movie? Did you really?
 

Gaiman

  

Neil

  

American Gods

  

Excellent
Brush up on your ongoing and intense chases involving all sorts of mythology.
 

Lowry

  

Lois

  

The Giver

  

Good
Seriously, every home should have a copy of this book. I am giving one to you.
 

Osteen

  

Joel

  

Your Best Life Now  – Hardcover

  

Excellent
Spice up your life with a little pomade and evangelism.
 

Phillips

  

Caryl

  

Cambridge

  

Average to Poor
According to the NYT book review: “Swiftly moving, adroitly told.” So, it’s halfway like Twilight.
 

Robinson

  

Marilynne

  

Housekeeping

  

Good
Fall in love with language and uplifting themes all over again.
 

St. Augustine

  

Confessions

  

Good
I agree with a lot of his philosophy and observations. Also, St. Augustine is one of my favorite towns.
 

Wharton

  

Edith

  

The Age of Innocence

  

Good
How can the Post-Bellum/Gilded Age be all that innocent? Edith Wharton will explain to all the ignorami.

Mine

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My name is May. This is my month.

Of course I’ll share it with you. I mean, 31 days is more than plenty to go around.

What are you going to do with my month? It’s the best time of year with spring in full swing. Are you going to go on hikes? Go camping? Start exercising again?

Are you going to try to write more poetry? Start submitting your work to various publications?

What are you going to do with your garden? How do you plan to landscape your yard? Is mowing the lawn something you look forward to, more than raking leaves in the fall?

Will you get a puppy? I know people who really want puppies.

Will you be going on more dates? Will you try kissing more? Maybe you should work on your moves because then at least you’re working on something.

Go dancing. Fly kites. Sing scales. Don’t forget to include arpeggios.

Also, don’t forget Mother’s Day. Seriously.

We just renewed the lease on our apartment. We’ve been sporadically working on making our home cozy, a nice nook for us and books to live. Now that we’ll be here for another year we’re starting to feel more settled. We rearranged our bedroom so that it feels bigger. We put up a shelf for more of our books to live. We’ve hung some photographs and posters, and I’m considering curtains, but that seems too big of a commitment right now.  I know that sounds weird, but the idea of curtains excites and scares me at the same time.

We moved the bookshelf from our bedroom into the living area. We also bought another bookshelf for the living room. We rearranged a lot of the living space for the books, and now many hardcovers reside on the shelves in the living room. This opened up space in the library for us to get books out of storage so that they wouldn’t feel left out. I’m grateful they have a place now, but I can’t even imagine how the books feel.

As I write I realize that I could go on about how Reilly organized the paperbacks according to publisher but we have a lot of books from independent publishers, and I’d also like to organize his Spanish novels and my French ones, but then I wonder if I actually have a point to this post.

I mean, I guess I could liken books to people and this post could be about creating space for all types of people. Taking books out of the closet, that sort of thing. That would come across as pretty heavy-handed,  but I really can’t explain how much better I feel now that all our books are on the shelves.

We did all that in April.

Maybe my point is that I can’t wait to see what May brings.

Pun absolutely intended.