My Christmas Music-lessness

It is now less than a week before Christmas. I haven't listened to a single Christmas song. Not a one. And I don't miss them, not one little bit. In fact, I'm not really sure I even like most Christmas songs.

I'm sure part of this, like my fear of cannibals, is rooted in my childhood. Most children grow up surrounded by a wide variety of beloved classics. The lone Christmas cassette tape at my home was the Carpenters. We would play that tape on an endless loop from the moment we set the tree up, until the moment we abandoned the tree to scavenging boy scouts. And in the spirit of full disclosure that tape may or may not have made numerous guest appearances throughout the year. I like the Carpenters and all their sweet seventies cheese, I really do. It's not Christmas for me without and the occasional hint of a synthesizer and the special smooth seventies harmonies. I'll lay down Ms. Karen Carpenters "Ave Maria" against anyone else's, any day of the week.  And don't get me started on Sleigh Ride.

Because of this somewhat narrow exposure to Christmas music, I began life predisposed against many of the supposed Christmas classics, or at least without the added sentimental value that so often makes up for quality. For some inexplicable reason, most of the rest of the world doesn't share my love of the Carpenters, so they are largely left out of the annual Holiday rotation*. In turn, I'm none to found of many of you peoples supposed classics. I hate Bing Crosby. I think his songs sound like they were sung by a drunk hobo, his voice bobbing and weaving around in an attempt to find a steady note. I'm always happy when Frost melts. I don't understand why oh so many songs consist of saying the same words over and over again (Feliz Navidad, I'm looking at you). I have never needed only a little Christmas right this very minute, I want the whole Christmas experience and I'm willing to wait for it. You get the idea.

From my Carpenters Christmas capades, my next great exposure to Christmas music came from choir. I actually enjoyed most of those songs, at least at first. Choir tends to avoid most pop music debacles, and goes with some relatively fun or pretty classics. The Hallelujah chorus and carol of the bells are wonderful. But, the quality of the songs sung can ultimately only help so much. As anyone who has ever been even remotely connected to a choir knows, by the time December comes around you have spent several months of you life utterly immersed in the same 3-5 Christmas songs, and by now you hate every note, every syllable, every stanza, with every ounce of your soul. Still, by the time next December had come around, I was generally healed and ready to launch into another session.

However, I think my time as a receptionist at BYU really cemented my malaise towards Christmas Music. You see, for my junior year I had a pretty sweet gig as the morning secretary for BYU catering. The work was mildly interesting, the coworkers were sweet, and I had plenty of time to do homework/meander the internet. I could even have the radio on to provide a bit of pleasant background noise. However, like everything else at BYU, there was a catch. the only station that was approved by the powers that be was a syrupy sweet soft rock station that could not offend the curmudgeony old donors, just those of use with actual taste. It was pleasant to have as background noise, but the standard line up of the same songs every morning was more than a little repetitious.

I would soon come to beg for mercy for such a wide repetoir of musical masterpeices. When Thanksgiving week arrived, soft rock gave way to Christmas songs. Do you know how many Christmas songs are played on the radio? It can't possibly be more than 50. This may be fine for the occasional car trip, where you just get a 15 minute dose of Christmas cheer. But I spent 3 hours, every day, for a month, trapped in a small room with Feliz Navidad** echoing about every 45 minutes. And please, don't even get me started on Christmas Shoes. At first I was able to find respite in some of the less offensive tunes. Every "O Holy Night" from Josh Groban, or similarly inoffensive tune, was a balm on my soul. Or at least it was for about a week, until all the joy and beauty was slowly stripped away from my soul.

Something inside me broke that December.*** Hearing a few tell tale notes spewing out of the radio in November brings back traumatic flashbacks of those dark days, and I just can't bear to be subjected to that again. I suppose I don't really hate most Christmas songs, there are still quite a few I genuinely enjoy. I just don't really have the desire to seek them out. I especially don't want to hear them too much, too soon. I've lost too much Christmas music joy already, I feel the need to protect what little I have left. I'll probably sink into a Christmas Carpenters coma (wow, I'm really abusing alliteration today) in the next few days, but for now I'm enjoying the silence.

* With the notable exception of Merry Christmas Darling, which I didn't like even as a child.

**Yes, this is the second time I'm mentioning this song. I really really hate Feliz Navidad. ***I am being a tad hyperbolic and dramaqueeny. It's a blog, what do you expect- measured restraint?

(Also, I completely stole the whole * footnote thing from Mormon Child Bride, and guiltily feel liek I should give her credit. It's not plagirism if you cite, right? If your just looking for fun, slighly snarky read, you should go there. She is so much better than me. For the readers with an actual personal connection to me, well I suppose your stuck with me. Sorry.)

Grad School v. Law School

Zach and I are both engaged in fairly demanding programs right now- he's working on a masters degree in history and is immersed in the often narcissistic realm of academia, while my time in law school has me engaged in a self-important professional program. With both of us knee deep in upper level degrees, and with both of us having considered pursuing the track chosen by the other, I often find myself wondering who is in the most demanding program.

Most of the time I'm inclined to think that the law program is by far the harder of the two. I think the concepts are harder to grasp, the intricacies make less rational sense, and many of the cases feel like they were written by egotistical monkeys on typewriters. And I almost always take more credits than he does, and spend much more time in class. Plus if I don't learn my stuff I can potentially ruin the lives of my future clients. I'm not sure what harm a slightly off analysis of old events that will mostly be read and criticized by other academics can really cause. I'm not saying its not important, but the stakes are slightly different.

However, then there are weeks like this one. Weeks where Zach has barely slept as he pumps out paper after paper. And reads book after book after book. This is what his desk has looked like for the past month. And he's read pretty much all of those. Not to mention the books scattered in other places throughout the apartment. Outlining is its own kind of hell, and the encyclopedia sized law books are nothing to scoff at, but at least I have some desk space.

Of course, I still have a week left of finals and he's scott free until next semester. So, we'll see how long my sympathy for his program lasts (I'll give it 36 hours, tops).

Rawr, rawr, rawr, rawr, rawr

I'm not sure how or when it happened, but somehow I've developed  a love of the craziness, sexuality-subverting, pop artistry that is Lady Gaga. Or perhaps more specifically her song, "Bad Romance". Because, or perhaps in spite of that, I've had that song stuck in my head all week. Which means I've also been listening to it all week. Which means Zach has been listening to it, or at least had its sound forced on him via proximity. I don't think he quite gets it, especially as he's been wandering around singing "Rawr, rawr, rawr, rawr, rawr" to the tune of the song ever sense. I tried to show him the music video, but that just added vaguely dinosauresque dance moves to his "rawr, rawrs." In fairness, they are a somewhat accurate impersonation of some of the dance moves.

I suppose I wish he was more pop-culture savy every now and again, but it's more fun this way.

Purging people

As I was adding a new number to my cell phone, I noticed just how many numbers I still have crowding my address book that I haven't used in years, and likely will never use again. I can't imagine any circumstance in which I would feel the desire to call my old supervisor from the Target I worked at 3 years ago, but if the need arises, I'm prepared. I have no way of knowing if most of these numbers are even accurate. Some numbers just have a first name attached to them - a name which has no meaning to me. I have no idea who Susan is, but I can call her with just a simple click.

It takes me far to long to scroll through the list of numbers to get to the person I actually want to contact. It' s impractical and cumbersome. But the idea of deleting any entries just seems so wrong to me. Just poofing them away, like they never existed. vanishing into cyberspace. Its so final, such a dramatic way of cutting off any line of contact.

There's also a bit of ego involved. My big list of numbers feels a little like my own private facebook friends page - it may serve no practical purpose, but it makes me feel popular to see this big list of people who deemed me worthy of exchanging phone numbers with. Yes, most of them just gave me the number so I could call the about group projects or other mundanities, but it still counts, at least to me.

I don't purge my facebook friends list either, and for much of the same reasons. There are probably at least 50 people on there who I barely remember, but I'll never cut them out. It always seems too cruel. Occasionaly I'll glance at my number of "friends" and notice that its a few numbers smaller then I remember. I can never figure out who cut me out, which usualy means I don't really remember them and can hardly blame them from culling me from the herd. It still stung a little. It may not really matter, but removing those little cyber ties still has a bit of a bite. It seems a little too middle-schoolish, "we're not friends anymore so I'm just going to delete you from my life". So even with a cell phone list that no one but me sees, I just can't bring myself to hit the delete button.

What about you? Are you frequent purgers, or do you hold on to numbers, just in case?

My high horse

Some people are grammar nazis, or can't handle typos, or are otherwise feel like nails are slowly and painfully scratching a chalkboard in response to a number of seemingly innocent human behaviors. As you can probably tell afetre a casual survey of past posts, my blog is riddled with typos and a host of other ghastly errors. I'm not sure how I manage to always type the as teh, but I do, every time. And every post at least one won't get caught in my so quick it's almost useless proofread. I know it makes me look like an idiot. i deserve whatever judgement comes my way. Anyways, I may not be one of those people, but I promise I too judge people based on silly little mistakes that don't really matter, but I am unable to tolerate with any sense of charity or compassion.

Today I am judging people based on their ability to discern between "gender" and "sex". You know all the baby announcements I've mentioned? Well, once I get them and feel all appropriatley excited for the happy familly, a small part of me begins dreding the inevitable post that will appear a month or so latter to reveal the "gender" of the baby.

People. Allow me to help/get this off of my chest. GENDER AND SEX ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Gender refers to "the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." Sex on the other hand refers to the bilogical distinction between males and females. So when you get excited over your first glimpse of your son's penis on the ultrasound, you are excited over finding out his sex. Several months latter when that blessed child enters the world and is lovingly wrapped up in a blue blanket and people start referring to how big and strong he is, BAM! Congratulations, your son has been gendered. Alternatively, if your son comes up to you at age 18 and tells you that he has always identified as a woman, well, congratulations, your son's sex may be male, but his gender is female. Gender=social cnstruct. Sex=biology. Get it? Good, I now expect great things from any and all future offspring related facebook updates. You have been warned.

I know that colloquially gender and sex are interchangeable, and I shouldn't get so worked up. And really, short of having taken a sociology or gender studies class, I'm not sure how I would expect people to know. I know that sex also refers to the sweet, sweet loving that has produced the child whose gender you will not know until they have had a chance to be exposed to all the categories the world is anxiously waiting to stuff them into. Maybe some of you get giggle like middle schoolers when the word sex is used, but if you're having sexual intercourse, you should be able to say sex in reference to the result of said intercourse.

Ahem. And that's my judgemental, high horse of the day. So tell me, what are you using to judge others today? Any pet peeves out there?

I can take a hint

I feel a little silly admitting this out loud, but for a sizeable chunk of November I was hit with crazy baby fever. I'm not sure what if it was some sort of hive mind response to seemingly everyone I know having just had a baby or just found out that they're expecting (I swear, there is some sort of baby announcement on my facebook wall everyday, not to mention the people I blog stalk), or if I actually do have some sort of crazy baby, hungry biological clock deal, but oh I wanted one so bad. I was looking at all the adorable nursery things, and thinking about names and cute wittle baby smiles. Even practical Genavee kind of got into the game, and started looking at birth plans, new apartments and what not. It was pretty bad, but I got over it. We have a nice plan that calls for kids in 4-5 years when we have some sort of stability  - little things like jobs and maybe even living in a place with more than one room. Big dreams, I know. But its a good plan for us, and I'm sticking with it.

Now my period is about two weeks late. I'm 99.5% sure that this is nothing. I've peed on a stick and gotten negative results, we are very responsible birth control users, all in all I can't fathom how I could possibly be pregnant. But just the very though of it being possible sends ice cold shivers of fear running down my spine. There is no way we can afford a baby. Our apartment is far to small. My health insurance is a joke. We don't even have a good network of support here in DC that could help us limp along. Not to mention how hard having a baby now would make finishing school, let alone finding a job and paying down student loans. I always know these things. But during these times of fear, I really really know. I'm choosing to interprete this little punctuality problem as the universes way of forcibly reminding me how catastrophic a baby would be right now. I get it Universe - right now baby=bad. Message received. Now if you would be so kind as to give me some peace of mind, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Snow (or how my Utah heart began to thaw)

This morning I woke up, brushed me teeth, turned on my computer and was greeted by my weather bug chirping about snowfall in the DC area. I wasn't quite ready to accept the icon, so I stubbornly kept the blinds drawn in a desperate attempt to stave off the harsh chill of reality. Alas, Zach had no such bashfullness. Because his inner child was raised in Alaska, Zach was bouncing around like a puppy, pulling open the blinds in a giddy fervor and revealing the ice cold flakes of evil coating my once temperate and pleasant home. 


Can you tell that snow is not my most favorite of weather? It didn't used to always be this way. In my Oregon childhood snow was a miraculous substance that blanketed in the world in loveliness and winter cheer, and most importantly of all brought with the miracle of school cancellation. But four miserable years of trudging about in Utah winters managed to beat most of my snow spirit out of me. During those perpetually snow and sludge coated months I began to bitterly refer to snow as the hate of the world and would generally had a bah-humbugesque attitude.  


But, even with my bitterness, it seemed worth snapping a photo or two through my window, so as to have evidence of my discontent.

Curiously enough it was actually kind of fun having an excuse to use my camera. And avoiding studying did seem like a solid plan. So I figured I may as well through a coat and boots on over my oh so chic yoga pants and giant shirt ensemble, meander down stairs and take a few shots. Hey, I'll take any excuse to wear my awesome whale boots.

 

To my great surprise it was actually kind of pretty outside. With the snow icing the previously bare and depressing trees and lending a touch of softness to the old brick buildings, Soft, white flakes gently floated down, leaving little kisses on my nose. In spite of myself, there was something nice about the scene. 

I ventured out a little ways, took a few silly shots of myself in the classic outstretched arm method. I may have started to skip and twirl a little bit amidst the flurry.

Catching sight of the church steeple towards the end of the block, I made my way down towards the lot of Christmas trees on its lawn, took a bit of a detour over to the Catholic church across the street, and other wise enjoyed wandering around for a bit.

 

For the bored and the curious, I have more pictures on facebook. All in all, I'm not sure if it's just the lack of Utah-ness, my love of the whale boots or if it really was pretty outside, but for the first time in a while I really enjoyed the snow. It remains to be seen wheteher this will last, especially as teh winter wears on, but for today it was a pleasant surprise.