i know. i'm blushing.

Before the magic of Christmas:

During the magic of Christmas:

After the magic of Christmas:

Right now, I’m sitting here thinking about the phrase “bought the farm” and failing to see the connection. Why does “he bought the farm” mean “he died”? If anything, it seems like he’d be losing the farm, not buying it. …Right?

Stages of my hurt feelings:

1. Ask “wait, what do you mean?” …as if the person truly cares about increasing my understanding. Or truly cares about anything for that matter.  I don’t yet recognize my naivety.
2. Laugh along as if I think it’s funny too. I was just joking when I asked for clarification. Aren’t I funny? Keeping the joke going like that? Hoo boy. Talk about funny.  Sooo funny…
3. Quietly realize that I don’t actually think it’s funny and quickly force the corners of my lips upward. Smile smile smile.
4. A quick attempt at diverted conversation.  What are they talking about over there?  Ooh, that’s so interesting.  Really, I’m interested… no really… I’m not just trying to divert my brainwaves.  Honest.
5. When the topic that originally stung me comes up again—yes again, and then again, and again, and AGAIN—force myself to laugh again, and again, and again.  It begins to get old.  Increasingly difficult to pretend.
6. Recognize that if this doesn’t stop soon, there’s a very real chance that I’m going to cry.  In front of all these people.  Don’t cry, Kelly.
7. Think about something else.  Immediately.  And don’t stop thinking about something else until I can get out of there.  …This is weird; it has been incredibly long since I’ve felt this way, and the strangely familiar feeling burns like a long-forgotten wound.
8. Thankgoodness, it’s over and I can leave.  A strange mix of relief, irritability, and hidden embarrassment fight for dominance inside.
9. Home.  Finally alone.  In the freedom of my own space, my embarrassment morphs into anger.  Anger at the people laughing.  Anger at the person talking.  My mind suddenly flows with all the cruelly honest things I could’ve said to hurt the offender.  Ooooh, I wish I had thought of these things in the moment.  Is this satisfaction I feel?
10. A rush of relief that I didn’t think of those things in the moment.  And no, that feeling was not actually satisfaction, just some superficial counterfeit.  If I had said those things, I would’ve been filled with one of those sensational feelings that soon burns away, leaving me feeling worse in the end.
11. That realization puts my mind at ease for a while.  I find myself in an empty calm.
12. Now that I’m calm, maybe I can reassess what happened objectively.
13. No.  Not yet.  Still not objective enough, and I slip into feelings of despair.  Global sadness: my emotions are no longer directed towards the offender specifically, but now at humankind in general.  People are rotten and insensitive.  People are shallow and bigoted.  People refuse to consider other points of view and other people’s feelings.  There is no hope for the world and I wish at that moment that I weren’t a part of it.  It seems humans will never change.  Misunderstandings thrive.  Hate grows.  And we destroy one another.  So it always has been.  Must it always be?
14. Recognizing that I’m being ridiculous doesn’t make me feel better.
15. Some ambient music and a mindless puzzle game help me divert my thoughts again.  Gosh, this music is hypnotizing.  I find calm, again.  Maybe this time it’s more real.
16. And here we are at the present.  I consider this strange cycle of emotions… doing so is oddly therapeutic.  How interesting to replay the night’s events without feeling my emotions stir up again.  Instead I’m just a curious (almost) disinterested observer examining how those events once caused my emotions to ignite.  I feel like I’m peeking into a shoebox diorama of my own brain… on my blog.  (Well hello there world.)
17. Peace?  Probably not quite yet.  But I guess at least I’m closer.

“Never is a Promise” by Fiona Apple:

You’ll never see the courage I know
Its colors’ richness won’t appear within your view
I’ll never glow the way that you glow
Your presence dominates the judgments made on you

But as the scenery grows, I see in different lights
The shades and shadows undulate in my perception
My feelings swell and stretch; I see from greater heights
I understand what I am still too proud to mention – to you

You’ll say you understand, but you don’t understand
You’ll say you’d never give up seeing eye to eye
But never is a promise, and you can’t afford to lie

You’ll never touch these things that I hold
The skin of my emotions lies beneath my own
You’ll never feel the heat of this soul
My fever burns me deeper than I’ve ever shown – to you

You’ll say, Don’t fear your dreams, it’s easier than it seems
You’ll say you’d never let me fall from hopes so high
But never is a promise and you can’t afford to lie

You’ll never live the life that I live
I’ll never live the life that wakes me in the night
You’ll never hear the message I give
You’ll say it looks as though I might give up this fight

But as the scenery grows, I see in different lights
The shades and shadows undulate in my perception
My feelings swell and stretch, I see from greater heights
I realize what I am now too smart to mention – to you

You’ll say you understand, you’ll never understand
I’ll say I’ll never wake up knowing how or why
I don’t know what to believe in, you don’t know who I am
You’ll say I need appeasing when I start to cry
But never is a promise and I’ll never need a lie

I dig the raw broodiness of this song.  In some twisted way, I sometimes wish I could be this internally angsty.  But it’s never worked for me.  I can’t keep it in.  …Almost always.

I used to have the most amazing version of this song.  It was on a mix a friend in high school gave to me… Renee gave me a lot of good music that year.  Anyway, it was Fiona singing with this gorgeous flowing piano in the background, and that was it.  Simple and not overproduced.  My CDs got stolen a few years ago and I haven’t been able to find that version since.

when your bow is broken and your last arrow spent, then shoot, shoot with your whole heart.
-zen saying

dewdrop, let me cleanse
in your brief
sweet waters…
these dark hands of life
-matsuo basho

I suck at shopping.

I’ve only been to one store today and already I’m back at home feeling overwhelmed. I didn’t even buy anything while I was there. I need a break and I haven’t even started.

Before I die, I hope I…

…knit a scarf. I hate to admit it, but I have yet to finish any knitting project I have begun. It’s shameful. Even finishing a simple scarf would be commendable.

…experience midnight in broad daylight. The idea that there are places on the globe where the sun doesn’t set during the solstice is fascinating and irresistible to me. I want to be there for that.

…stare at the aurora borealis over my head. (I think I’ve got Alaska on my mind.)

…ride a horse at an insanely fast gallop across a big, wild, wide-open landscape. Movies make it look so exhilarating.

I stumbled across this funny article, or whatever you want to call it, and I had a good chuckle.  You can read it below, or read it here at its true home.

- – - -

CONVERSATIONS MY PARENTS MUST HAVE HAD WHILE PLANNING TO RAISE A CHILD.

by Jen Statsky

- – - -

DAD: I don’t think we should ever talk about feelings.

MOM: Never.

- – - -

DAD: I’ll take the greatest number of photographs of her when she’s in her most awkward stage, right in the depths of puberty.

MOM: Good idea. I’ll make sure to send them to all our immediate and all our somewhat distant family and friends. Oh, and make sure you forget your camera the one night in her life that Billy Sherman talks to her, so that no proof exists of said event.

DAD: Got it.

- – - -

DAD: We should talk very loudly about the truth about Santa Claus.

MOM: Yes, and let’s not make any attempt whatsoever to disguise Santa’s handwriting from our own.

- – - -

MOM: Let’s make sure we avoid the topic of sex so masterfully and so consistently that she begins to wonder if it’s something made up by people on TV.

DAD: Good idea. Let’s also ignore the existence of any of her long-term boyfriends, no matter how harmless, awkward, and acne-prone they are.

- – - -

MOM: She should never have to worry about money, especially when she’s young.

DAD: I agree. That way, she can spend all her time worrying about us getting a divorce.

- – - -

DAD: When I teach her to ride a bike, I will tell her that my hand is on the seat, but then I will take it away just as she is getting the hang of it.

MOM: That will not turn out well.

DAD: No.

- – - -

MOM: I’ll make sure to give her a haircut that matches mine. Mine in 1972, that is.

DAD: Great. I’ll wear an awkward comb-over.

- – - -

DAD: I think I’ll always be a little bit weirder than necessary around her friends. Especially the “cool” ones who are just over to copy notes for Ms. Reardon’s AP Physics midterm.

MOM: Sounds good. I’ll always talk one decibel louder than a normal person.

- – - -

DAD: She will beg us to get a dog for many, many years.

MOM: And I will repeatedly tell her how I am allergic to animal hair.

DAD: You will wear a fur coat.

- – - -

MOM: Whenever she does something that really upsets me, I’ll always make sure to tell her that “her grandmother is rolling over in her grave.”

DAD: Even though we will cremate her.

- – - -

DAD: I will demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the proper grammatical way to use quotation marks, and sign every birthday card with “Love.”

MOM: That will keep her on her toes.

- – - -

MOM: I think the most important thing is that we will criticize her, no matter what she does or who she becomes.

DAD: And that she knows we criticize her just as much as we criticize each other.

- – - -

DAD: Let’s not give her a little brother or sister.

MOM: No. That might function as some sort of coping mechanism.

- – - -

MOM: We can’t take her on those classic but trite kid vacations that every other child in the Western world gets to experience, like trips to Disneyland.

DAD: No, for she will gain great popularity and respect from her second-grade classmates when she wears her “I Went to Vermont and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt Made From 100% Recycled Compost-Heap Materials” T-shirt.

- – - -

DAD: We should always give her what she wants.

MOM: That way, we can hold it against her when she’s older and can finally provide for herself.

- – - -

(Side note to Mom and Dad: Thanks for being more normal than the theoretical parents above. Well, “normal” might be generous, ::wink wink:: but you know what I mean. I guess I’m saying… I’m definitely glad I got you.)

(One last side note: Thanks to the almost right word for posting this first. That’s one of those blogs I secretly follow even though I don’t know the author in real life. Come on, you know you have a few of those, too. Anyway, I felt the need to point out that I’m actually stealing this post from her. Thanks!)

Bryant and I recently had our one-year wedding anniversary, and by “recently,” I mean six weeks ago.  Since Bryant had never been to Moab or Arches National Park (I know, I know… it’s sick and wrong to have lived in Utah for so long and never gone there), and since it’s one of my favorite places to escape to, we decided to take a little road trip.

While there, I discovered that Bryant hasn’t been completely honest with me about his true identity.  As it turns out, by day Bryant is the unassuming computer programmer we all know and love.  But by night, this mild-mannered coder transforms into Bryantman, the brawny, heroic champion of air conditioners and water heaters everywhere.

I had a hunch that there was more to him than meets the eye, but even so, I can’t believe he was able to keep it from me for so long.  I know I’m going to get in trouble tonight for letting his secret out, and I’m putting us all in danger.

You know how there are those random traditional guidelines for each year’s anniversary gifts?  Well, apparently the proper gift for the first anniversary is paper.  So, in the spirit of being completely proper, Bryant and I made random things out of paper for each other.

Check out the awesome jumping frog:

Before we set out for our hike in Arches National Park, I found this humongous crickety-grasshopper-thing.  I was totally enthralled by it:

I guess it really wasn’t that big though, because Bryant still mocks me for thinking it was so massive and cool.  I guess it was just an average-sized grasshopper.  I don’t know though… I really remember it being gigantic.  Like six inches long.  At least.  The picture really doesn’t do it justice.

As exciting as grasshoppers are, the real reason I brought Bryant down to southern Utah was to see some arches.  I took tons of pictures (one hundred sixty-eight to be exact, half of which were of the grasshopper), so I’ll pare it down to a handful of shots from the highlight of our trip: the hike to Delicate Arch.

We timed it so that we’d get to Delicate as the sun was setting.  It made for a really beautiful hike.  This is my favorite time of day.  I love the slanting light and the contrast of the long, dark shadows with the bright, orange glow on everything the sun touches.

I’ve never been to Delicate at that time of day before, and my goodness, it was breathtaking.    It was an overwhelming experience.  There were a dozen and a half people there, but no one made a sound.  No one walked near the arch—everyone sat on the ledge across the bowl with their cameras set up on tripods.  It’s like there was some unspoken rule to keep your distance and to speak in whispers.  All you could hear was the quiet wind and the soft “click click click” of camera shutters.  I’ve never had an experience quite like it.  All the other times I’ve been to Delicate, there have been lots of rowdy people all over the place.  It still was always beautiful, but nothing like this.  I was amazed at the reverence of the scene at sunset.  It felt like we were on holy ground.

Bryant pulled out his charcoals and sketchbook as I sat and stared:

We stayed until the sun set.  It’s amazing how many different colors the sky can turn.

Why is “lbs” the abbreviation for “pounds”?