my first taste of chaucer

I have of sorrow so great wound

That joy get I never none,

Now that I see my lady bright, 

That I have loved with all my might, 

Is from me dead, and is agone.

Alas, Death, what aileth thee,

That thou should'st not have taken me,

When thou took my lady sweet,

That was so fair, so fresh, so free,

So good, that men may well say

Of all goodness she had no meet!

Right on this same, as I have said

Was wholly all my love laid

For certes she was, that sweet wife,

My suffisaunce, my lust, my life,

Mine hap, mine health and all my bless,

My world's welfare and my goddess,

And I wholly hers, and everydel.

most beautifully written, sir geoffrey. I thank you.

rain

it's been thundering for the past thirty minutes and the first fat raindrops are hitting the skylights above me. it brings me back to old rag when that storm was approaching while we were starting down. it was windy and the cool air moved through the trees and along your skin as if it were alive. and if you closed your eyes, it would carry you away. from this angle, I can see the raindrops come down and land. it makes me think how many hundreds of feet they've fallen, how many states or oceans they've crossed. how many hands they've touched. the way they splat reminds of that picture book, the rainbabies. the old woman and her husband are childless so rain brings her rainbabies. 

songs I sang today

delicate and the professor and cannonball -- damien rice

the car. I was in a chill mood this morning. his lyrics are so nuanced, his voice so mesmerizing. it creates or reveals so many emotions in me.

annie waits -- ben folds

in the car with stephan. we went to wal-mart to order prints of his digital pictures. we ended up accidentally making an order that cost upwards of $70. skills. I got to see a bunch of his mission pics. it made me jealous. he berated me for not having the whole ben folds five album. I told him I actually buy my music and there's just too much good stuff to buy it all, especially when you're poor, like me and everyone else. 

oh no and 60 revolutions -- gogol bordello

rocking out in the car with the windows down, beating the steering wheel, dancing frenetically all over the living room. dancing is such good exercise. and gypsy punk is awesome. I think gregory enjoyed it, but I may have weirded him out a bit. seriously, I could dance to eugene's voice and accordion beats all night long.

where can I get me some skin-tight purple pants, eugene? hook me up.

trolley wood and one day I slowly floated away -- eisley

anywhere and everywhere. stephan thought the lyrics were weird. they are, but they don't seem like it to me. 

come come ye saints

opening hymn at institute. sister shreffler smiled at me as I came in and started singing, but I think she still doesn't know my name. I'm more inclined to ignore her deficiencies today, not sure why. talked to ryan baird, elizabeth lewis, stephan, and the missionaries. I think it's really funny that the missionaries, or one of them, talks to me. am I flirting? awesome. I am generally incapable of flirting. he has bad shoes, but good hands.

adam-ondi-ahman and I know my father lives

the chapel, practicing the organ and singing after institute because I'm playing on sunday for sister baird. spencer and jeff came in, I guess spencer was locking up the building. they came in and asked me about the organ. I showed them. they stayed and talked for quite a while. spencer's kind of cute and sweet. he asked if I was coming to movie night tomorrow and pushed for an affirmative. then he shook my hand as he left. oh returned missionaries, how cute and hopeless you are.

moses supposes erroneously

how do you pronounce these words? my take is in parentheses

irrevocably (ir-REV-okably)

tragedian (tra-GEE-dian)

atrium (aaaah like bat)

preferably (PREferably)

heinous (supposed to be haynous, I think)

machination (supposed to be mak-ination. news to me)

jaguar (I said jagwire, but apparently that's beastly. should be jag-whar)

vehement (supposed to be VEE-hement. also news to me)

warm (not w-are-m, but war-m)

feel (fEEl, exactly like it says)

if you just said "fill", you are from utah and need to learn how to speak correctly

much as I love you dooce, I like you much better when I can't hear you speak

worst day of work EVER and other things

I've written and told this story too many times already, so it's gonna be shorter here. numerous nigerians paid me in hundred dollar bills and a traveler's check. I had never done a check before and he paid with check and cash and then my drawer wouldn't open to give him his change. it was a fiasco. then I didn't have any change in my drawer and edwin went to get change from the safe in the back and who knows what he did. I was too busy freaking out. and margaret was telling me wrong things and then correcting herself and still managing to be condescending while being wrong. how is that possible? the register stopped working a couple of times on me. 

and then, my drawer was missing $54 and I was supposedly the only one who had rung cash on that drawer that day. traumatic day.

then later, it was me, brittney, josh, and edwin. they were messing around like usual. then josh gave us a pep talk and started us cleaning up the store. I did what I was supposed to because I'm an excellent worker. the other three stood in a cluster in the front of the store and talked while I bumped the entire store, tagged and straightened the shoes, windexed, cleaned the bathroom, helped customers, AND did register while they stood there and messed around with balloons and threw shoes at each other. because of course, they couldn't be bothered to actually do any work while working.

and the most frustrating thing is that I can't break the unwritten co-worker code of not ratting on them. and I can't tell dan anonymously what's going on because he'll tell everyone to work and they'll know it was me cause I'm the only one who works when there isn't a responsible manager in sight. and dan doesn't even know what an awesome employee I am cause all of this happens when he's not there. AND I lost $54!!! 

this sucks. except I just got my schedule for the next two weeks and I'm working 19 hours and then 24 hours, which seems a weird reaction to losing money and not knowing crap, especially when they're cutting hours. my only hope can be that everyone's out of town or dan watched the security tape or something. doubtful.

hatred.

thursday and friday, I felt like I was seriously starving to death. I didn't even feel like eating, I wasn't craving sweets, I was just absolutely starving like I hadn't eaten all day, even 10 minutes after I'd eat a full-blown meal. it was absolutely miserable and scary as hell because I didn't know what was going on with me. I swear, if I had a disease or cancer or something, it wouldn't be that bad if I knew what was going on, I could deal with it. but having issues and not knowing what's going on is terrifying to me, the unknown in all forms. the starvation thing finally went away, in fact went just to the opposite of feeling, so absolutely full I was going to be sick. something must have happened to my hypothalamus. quirking out.

but then my foot swelled up and I had chills and a headache and a backache. it was the weirdest thing. I felt like my body was falling apart, like I was separating into pieces that were disintegrating, slowly, doggedly. I felt better when I woke up on saturday though. I think I should just take vitamins and try to forget about it.

I went to see the dark knight, the new batman movie, in imax opening night midnight release with david and elizabeth. we sat on the third row, so I need to see it again to get the full visual detail, but the city scenes were so awesome. and the joker's face 50 feet tall was a sight to be seen. as was christian bale's. in a much more delightful way. I'm going to post a review after I see it again. but for now, all you need to know is that it's awesome and worth seeing, but don't expect a batman begins duplicate. it's different.

more names

girls:

afton

marit

seren

bryony

tegan

boys:

guthrie (favorite boy name in the world.)

foster

surnames:

darlington

underwood

marlow

dream blog 2

part 1

there's lots I can't remember

there's a store or restaurant? interior is a short rectangle, low-ceilinged, cozy. one of the longer walls has a wooden counter with the till (the word seems to fit for some reason). the shorter wall meeting it perpendicular has a rounded bar counter. round wooden tables, lots of people around them, but we don't seem to be doing anything. 

there are quotes hand-painted onto the walls and door. on the end wall where the door is, there is a quote from me, and another on the door. I don't know what they said. the large one on the wall was only two words and supposedly clever, but I looked up at them and didn't get it.  the manager/owner is a man who I should know but can't remember now. claire's friends adam and joe work mornings there, but it's evening, so I missed them.

a little girl with Heelys rolled into a wall and hit her head. she wasn't hurt and everyone, including her, laughed. she came to sit down at a table, but for some reason everyone vacated it. she put her head in her arms and cried. 

I have a black paper sack of stuff I'm buying but I'm going out one door to go through the real door to come back in. the doors are too close, though, and someone else I should know, a girl, is in the way of the two doors and tells me I can't take the sack of stuff out to come back in cause something will happen ?? because they'll be unpaid for when I take them out.

part 2

in my house, a rain storm. I'm on the phone with mom, sitting at the computer and looking out the window, but it's in the dining room where we used to keep the old IBM and later the compaq. I'm just talking away when she suddenly asks me if the storm is too serious? I look out and the house is moving! pushed 10 or 15 feet back. I run into the kitchen. it's hard to make out among the dark wall of clouds, but there's a tornado.

I call dad, he's in the shower, but our shower not his, but when he comes out, he's dry and his robe is on. I call gregory. is jeffrey not there? I don't call for him. dad grabs a huge package, 4 feet long, of multiple packs of hamburger buns. I ask him if that's all we need, incredulous, and he says yes. we go to the basement. right before I go down, the house feels flimsy. too much light is coming in. powerless. I wish we could board the windows or that the basement door was sturdier.

there is storage/survival stuff all over the rec room. gregory is listening to some music on a radio or something. I feel like there should be more freaking out, but there isn't. the pipes are making crazy sounds. there's a huge water pipe behind a walled, wooden contraption, latticed on the inside, where the TV usually is. the pipe starts to burst. dad goes to get a saw?? it starts to spurt water and he yells to me to turn off the water, but the handle, supposedly on the floor, is covered by food storage shelving. he turns it off somewhere else.

I go upstairs to see what's going on because nothing's happening. the tornado is gone, but there are 2 more to the right, one much closer. it rotates and approaches visibly faster as soon as I look at it. scared, I run back downstairs. I fancy I can start to hear the train sound, but only because I expect it. I half-realize that my ears are creating the sound out of nothing. 

gregory wakes me up.

on cars

me and cars, we have this love/hate relationship. I love to drive stick shift. I love betty, my old truck. there are several cars that I would really love to own (cooper, prius, yaris,). but the reality is, I pretty much suck at driving and wish I could be suddenly the most amazing driver ever, or else never have to drive again in my life. one pro for marriage - we will undoubtedly have a hideous or cumbersome car I do not like, but I can make my husband drive all the time. I plan on never owning a van or mini-van. I know, I know, almost every woman in the world says that at some point and later would kill for one, but I'm really not planning on having that many kids. 

so I backed into someone yesterday. it was probably the most stupid accident you could ever be in. I'm really not that bad of a driver, but when I get in a stressful situation, I react so horribly, it's not even funny. I have absolutely zero driving instinct. I was turning right but was pulled too far forward, in the way of the oncoming lane, whose light just turned green. a car was coming, slowly, waiting for me to pull out. and I panicked. instead of pulling out like this car was letting me do, I reversed without looking into the bright yellow cobalt behind me. smooth. probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. 

we pulled into the sunoco and I apologized about 50 times for real and we exchanged phone numbers. the girl was my age I think, goes to jmu (back windshield sticker), has gross cellulite-y legs unpleasantly revealed by soffe shorts. I was afraid the owner of this clearly new, bright yellow car would be very angry at me. me the juvenile-looking oldsmobile-driving idiot. but she was pretty nice. there was only a tiny dent on the cobalt and a couple scratches on mine (I'm not sure the oldsmobile deserves a name, but I'll think about it).

these two guys at the sunoco came over and gave the girl the name of some guy to fix any damages, etc. they saw the whole thing. they drove a red truck and wore hole-y muscle tees and were both working towards full tattoo sleeves. I thought it amusing how helpful they were to her, young and attractive? bright yellow car owner, and how clearly they completely disregarded me, young yOUng old lame car idiot driver. 

it'll probably all work out, hoping her mom doesn't want a thousand bucks to replace the front bumper (there goes ALL my money I'm earning this summer). I just feel like the stupidest person alive. 

long live betty

story part 5

sadly, I don't know if this story is going to continue. I have a beginning, I have a plot, or at least half of one, but I have no idea how to go about writing a book. and I haven't written anything in a week or two. so we'll see. this is the last paragraph of my intro and the last of this project I will share, but I'll give the rough plot at the end, cause it's not really revealed here yet.

As he passed other doors on the way to 37E, some ajar, some only cracked, he saw other women.  Some were still bloody, others sleeping, all with headscarves still carefully in place -- the nurses were very attentive to the dignity of their sharia sisters.  The door to 37E was much like doors A-D, flaking yellowed paint, rusty hinges, a grimy square of glass placed too high in the frame for most to see in, and though he probably knew the patients of A-D, her friends and colleagues, only E held the tender promise of Nadia.  He opened the door as quietly as he could and slipped into the room.  A single window shone deep hues of the setting sun to warm the opposite wall.  The blanket that sprawled across the bed clung to her bony curves and she, skeleton child of the metal bed frame, clung to herself, arms wrapped together.  She was asleep, curled on her side like always, so close to the edge of the bed it seemed she would fall off.  If it weren't for the needle taped in the crook of her elbow, she could have been napping in their flat, waiting for him to come home.  He pulled a worn chair to the side of the bed and sat gingerly on the edge of it.  Taking one of her hands in his own, he stroked the smooth skin on the back of her hand with his thumb.  He would wait until exhaustion of the IV drip wore off, when she would wake and see him there with her, his own head resting on the thin mattress beside their hands, overcome by fatigue.

plot: nadia or sofia (name undecided) is moroccan but was raised in the UK by her immigrant moroccan parents. the guy is nameless right now, but british and they are in a relationship ... obviously. I want this to take place in morocco, but I'm not sure of how probable this political scenario would be there. there's been a coup by an extremist group - king assassinated, legislature and government suspended - who is violently repressing the western saharans fighting for separatism. nadia is working with moroccan women's rights leaders who carry out a peaceful protest requesting the new "government" reinstate the liberal women's rights measures of the previous government. they are gunned down. this is where we're at. the plot would involve multiple flashbacks establishing nadia's childhood and relationship and other experiences leading up to the violent opener. not sure where the plot's going to go from this, though.

story part 4

She could feel the saline breeze kick sand against her skin.  The soothing roll of the tide lulled in the background.  She felt a sharp prick in her side and twisted her torso to make way for a flood of newly-hatched sea turtles that scurried around her legs toward the sea and transformed in one elegant, fluid motion into miniature pelicans that rose in tandem and disappeared, winging over the ocean.  Her side seared with a sudden crippling pain.  And just as suddenly, she was back.  Back in Dakar under the vibrant awnings that filtered the beating sun but could not repel the heat of the street vendors' cooking, or the fire that market spices lit in the lining of her nose.  Back at the waterfall where (name) tugged at her hand, her ankle, and finally she toppled with a shriek to emerge laughing under the crystalline torrent of the falls.  Back to her crowd of warm-bodied women, surprise at their courage lurking just behind the resolve in their eyes as dust colored trucks rolled into the plaza and the women began to fall, bodies draping the ground gracefully, before her brain even registered the peppery outburst of gunfire.  Her side burned and she fell with faint surprise on a mattress of soft curves and headscarves.

money is stupid. so are grades.

I've been waiting for notification from byu about the status of my scholarship renewal. the fact that I have to renew anything is so ... gah! it makes me angry. I would have been a hinckley scholar but for the fatal misinforming or lack of informing of byu so that I didn't take the ACT for the second time to get the qualifying score when I needed to (I took it later and got the score). instead I took SAT subject tests to get into uva, a school I knew I wouldn't be attending. brilliant. so I have a one-year full tuition scholarship that I have to renew every year and the competition for that money is much more fierce and requires much better grades. 

I got the letter today. I only got half tuition renewed, not full. which is better than no scholarship, but it still upsets me. my mom says she's proud of me but this just isn't good enough for me. there are hundreds of people at my school who are getting full tuition scholarships because they have a gpa three hundredths higher than mine. and I'm mad that I couldn't pull off straight A's. I am better than this. not good enough.

and before you jump to conclusions about my exacting parents who require too much of me, no. they have never pushed me to get straight A's or rewarded me for them except for "You make us so proud" moments and an occasional night out to dinner. this is completely self-imposed. I do well because I want to, because I know I can, and I like to be the best. 

working out, wimbledon, work, and wildfires

I've been working out every day with my new short-term gold's gym membership. and by every day I mean so far monday and today. I think it bodes well for the future. I really enjoy it. I don't freak out exercise like some people. I don't feel the need to completely kill myself on a treadmill. I just like to be active and healthy and exercising makes me feel good. I just discovered that I workout better while reading than while listening to music. My favorite part is the euphoric floating feeling you get after when your legs are detached and your head is weightless. I've also been trying to eat fresh fruit with breakfast, something I would never do before. blueberries mmmm.

NADAL WON WIMBLEDON!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am! I was really sad I couldn't watch the match, as it was on sunday. I probably would have watched a bit of it, at least, when I wasn't doing church stuff, but my brothers are extremely impressionable. curse them. it was only possibly the best men's final of wimbledon since the beginning of time! and rafa ended up slightly better than mr. rogers. I think it comes down to their differences in attitude and physical approach. both are incredibly physical athletes of course, and unbelievably talented, but roger's all about finesse and it serves him well against less talented opponents (aka everyone else), but rafa is his match in skill and his gritty, raw power fighting approach gave him the slight edge he needed to beat the "unbeatable" federer. I'm actually sad for federer, who I never used to like before, but found him more care-worthy this season (maybe because of his love set loss to nadal in the french open). BUT not sad enough to want him to keep winning. it's time for a change of power. hellO rafa.

holy crap. the arm. look at the arm.

we're getting a billion kids shoes in the wednesday shipment at work, so last night I was shifting the men's wall about ten feet and adding styles from the bins into the wall. it was more tiring than the usual monday night shifting. I was parched and tweaked my back a couple times and got several cardboard cuts on my fingers again. and got blood on my shirt! but I got it out in the backroom. cause that's gross. I really like the manager aka my boss, dan. because we're mormon, there's an assumed automatic connection that opens up free conversation. at first I thought it was weird, but it's rather complimentary to have your boss share meaningful things like that with you. he has an 18 year old sister, so yet another instance where someone could be my brother (dan, nolen) or father (trowbridge). it's weird to think about. he hired a new manager-in-training named margaret. she's oldish and weird and talks a lot about things nobody cares about or understands. she takes FOREVER to close. but she is very complimentary. but I don't know if dan takes those praises seriously cause she's always saying them. I really don't know why he hired her. she wears scrunchies.

I talked to meesh the other day. I miss her. and today is jessica's birthday. I miss her, too. 

in gospel doctrine a couple of weeks ago, sister havens said that california has huge wildfires right now because gay marriage just became legal there. she is stupid. vermont allows gay marriage and nothing has happened to vermont. and california has had wildfire problems every summer since I can remember. ignorant, self-righteous speculation and logical fallacy. this is why I don't like gospel doctrine in my ward. besides those moments, it's been getting better, though. I still miss the byu ward. it was many times better.

story part 3

He scanned the room, eyes jumping from screaming infant to screaming mother, harried nurse to pooling blood, to unanswered handset on the counter whose persistent ring rose shrill above the chaos like the rising panic in his chest.  He maneuvered through the maze of sick and injured to push through a door at the far end of the room while the nurse's back was turned.  It opened to white surfaces with an equal but more controlled chaos of shouted instructions, careening gurneys, and the feverish movement of capable hands.  The warm, sickly-sweet odor of blood hit his nostrils, followed by a sharp wave of disinfectant.  He stood still, eyes searching for the short hair and high cheekbones of the woman in a crisp doctor's coat who appeared in the mouth of the hallway opposite.  She summoned him with a quick agitation of her fingers.  He dodged the running traffic as he crossed the hall, breath frozen in his chest.  She shot him a brief, warm smile as she gathered his large hand in her fine mocha ones.  "She's alright."  With barely a sound, hot tears escaped his blinking eyes and he wept, softly, numbly, as the panic gradually dissipated.  She pulled his head to her shoulder and rubbed his back softly for a calm minute, strangely separated from the madness that continued to unfold around them, a careful sphere of quiet relief.  "It's okay,  (name) , it's okay."  As he straightened, she was already beginning to turn and head off down the main hall in pursuit of a fleet of gurneys.  "37E on the left.  I'll be back in a few," she called back over her shoulder.

story part 2

which is really paragraph 2.

Light shone behind her closed eyelids.  The beeps, wails, footsteps, shouts, voices hovering over her head, they all faded and grew like a series of doors opening and closing to blare or snatch the sound waves on a whim.  She could feel nothing but an odd, disembodied tingling in her fingertips and the stiff, jutting awkwardness of the needle in her arm.  Her awareness of the IV, the panic induced by its casual intrusion into the comfort of her skin, shut off everything else -- voices, light, numbness -- leaving only a violent nausea that engulfed her and just as quickly 

black.

wake up

I went to see wall-e last night in an intense celebration of America by supporting its failing economy. we didn't set off fireworks in the yard or go anywhere, we just had a good picnic-type dinner, and I've been wanting to see wall-e and didn't particularly want to sit in my basement and watch other people celebrate on tv. so I convinced my dad to take us to the movies. 

it was good. it was absolutely FULL of messages. it wasn't just a finding nemo feel-good movie. when it was over, I was thinking, really hard. it had a deep solemnity about it. and while it celebrated the human spirit, the desire to do good and live life to the fullest, to overcome and find within us the definition of humanity, it also showed how low we could possibly let ourselves become, by ever losing those things in the first place. 

as the captain, thrown by the auto-pilot from his hover-chair, stood up and shakily shifted his massive weight from chubby foot to chubby foot and the watching crowd of human blobs cheered at this amazing feat, I wasn't caught up in the moment. I was thinking how sad the society where that is the mark of tremendous courage and strength and progress. I hope we never get to that.

the amazing thing about the movie's characters, wall-e and eve, are their ability to display astounding human characteristics through virtually no words. just movements. of hands. of eyes. and the repetition of each other's names in surprisingly poignant robotic voices. I have a feeling this means something more than just the contrast to the humans, robotic in their incessant obedience to advertising, technology, and mindlessness.

one of my favorite messages of the movie is that love is more than just attraction or a hundred other things. it's devotion, concern, self-sacrifice. 

it was a hopeful movie. for change and a shouldering of responsibility for ourselves and our planet. and the fact that we are never too far gone to change the way things are. the cowardly thing to do is run away and hope someone else will clean up the mess we made. and growth, life, rebirth, will always exist. hopeful, but still scary. when I left the theater, I was dwelling more on the possible trajectory of humankind than the possibility of backtracking. 

I hope others also felt the weight of responsibility, to make a difference where we can. the creators of this film wielded their power well. now it's up to us.

story part 1

okay, I promised updates on my more recent and, in this case, current writing projects. so, even though this story is in extreme preliminary stages and I'll probably rewrite this opener several times, I'll give you what I've got. but in installments. I have several sections written, so hopefully in the time it takes to release them gradually, I'll have written more and you won't be left hanging. unless I drop the story, of course, but I don't think that's going to happen. I've had a writing subject blank for a period of years now and I'm not about to abandon this sudden creative flow. I have no idea where this plot came from and even less where it's going. feel free to critique.

He had reached the hospital in dangerous time, running two red lights and clipping the bumper of another car while weaving through the stalled traffic in the dusty streets of Marrakesh.  But now that he was here, the adrenaline had run its course, and he sat in his parked Range Rover, one hand tightly gripping the clutch, the other white on the wheel.  Whatever was going on inside, it would keep happening just as doggedly, just as fated, with or without him there.  He was not ready to face whatever reality lay outside the car's fragile box of uncertainty, of waiting.  He stared at the taut knuckle lines of his hand on the steering wheel, and then, in a rush, noticed the abrupt, furious pounding of blood through his wrists, his gut, his temple.  Willing his limbs to obey, he relaxed his hands and raised them to grip the metal supports of the headrest behind his neck.  His breathing became measured.  Face pallid and fingers quivering, he opened the car door and stepped out.

old rag pictures

the rain.

at least his antics didn't require me to laugh.

not called the blue ridge for nothing.