Crossing Over

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if your waking and dreaming lives crossed, like they sometimes do in the movies? Here's some background to the story: In my waking life, I just finished Joshua Mowll's Operation Red Jericho and I want to read the sequel. Alas, neither library in town owns a copy.

Last night I dreamed I was back at BYU. I was a bit miffed to find out that my roommates had oodles of free time to sit at home during the day while I pursued my usual 12-hour weekdays of work and seminary.

Anyway, my brother A-1 was at also at BYU (looking nothing like his actual self). We were both pretty sure that the BYU library would have the Mowll sequel (they actually do!). And the best thing is that A-1 said BYU's library now offers "counterless checkout." Through some wonder of modern technology, you walk out the front with a book and it's automatically charged to your account with an end-of-semester due date. OK, maybe that's not the best thing if you're security or privacy minded, but it sounded like a good idea in the dream. When I last saw him, A-1 was off to borrow the book for me.

In my waking life, I'll be relying on Interlibrary Loan to find me a copy of the book. But who knows, maybe A-1 will show up with the BYU copy tonight and I can dive right in!

photo: Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. (19 Feb 1949). [photo of circulation desk at Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts]. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, LC-G612-54563. Retrieved from Library of Congress American Memory.

Reader Quiz

Super Reader of the Week title will be awarded to the first person who can correctly identify the commonality among the following words:

SST

Ishtar

Erno

Eire

era

It's All About Me!

pen or pencil: pencil

shower or bath: shower

night or day: night

sour or sweet: sweet

dark or milk: depends

spicy or mild: mild

Obama or McCain: ?

snow or sand: snow

book or movie: book

The Secret is Out

A first-time visitor to my apartment asked me today if I like books. I think the 338+ books in the living room probably gave it away.

Day Trip

My readers have really been applying the pressure. We'll see if they still want
(near) daily posts once they remember how truly uneventful my life is and how truly unimaginative a writer I am!

Saturday was the annual local Seminary Conference. I drove to Nashville, 66 miles round trip, for a day of talks, training, and trading of teaching tips. It was a long day of sitting mostly in one spot, but it was all very useful. I hope that some things will be a bit easier this year, since I'll be teaching from the very beginning (August 11!) rather than starting two months into the year. One teacher in my small group said that she is a new Seminary teacher, and has never taught teenagers before. I told her that I was in the same situation less than a year ago and am living proof that she'll survive the experience.

Lunch consisted of fruit salad, tortilla rollups, SunChips, and croissant sandwiches. Dessert was a black and white brownie concoction, baked in a piece of square parchment set in a muffin tin. I left the camera home, so I can't show you what they looked like but it was a novel presentation. They spooned what looked to be three different batters into each cup; one batter included mini chocolate chips.

Passing the Test

How many of you have dreamed that you are taking a school exam for which you haven't studied? My variation usually is not only that I have haven't studied, but that I haven't been to class all semester and I'm not sure how to get to the classroom.

A few months ago I dreamed a new twist: as the instructor handed out the exam, he said the last student to turn it back in would not receive credit. So I made sure I was the next-to-last person to turn mine in.

Then, last night the scenario changed again. The instructor distributed the exam, answered some questions about procedure, and I turned to my friend behind me to say something because it seemed the instructor was still explaining. Apparently, the instructor was not still explaining things and the test had begun, even though she hadn't explicitly said so. She walked down the row, took both of our exams and said that for talking we would receive a zero the exam.

I don't know what my friend did, but I had a take-home exam for another class that was due soon, so I pulled that out and started working on it. Luckily, the dream always ends before I see my final grade in the class. I suspect it's not a very good grade.

photo: Chicago Daily News. (ca. 1904). [photo of a police officer sitting at a desk at the front of a classroom monitoring other policemen taking the sergeants exam in Chicago, Illinois]. Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society. DN-0000738. Retrieved from Library of Congress American Memory

Am I Stunningly Out of Touch?

You probably know that I'm not particularly interested in either politics or talk show television. Today, however, a story about Michelle Obama on the The View caught my eye. Since I am under heavy obligation to produce regular posts, here's my two cents on the item.

Jennifer Parker, blogging at abcnews.com, writes that during a commercial break, Elisabeth Hasselbeck teared up while explaining to the audience she is about to leave her baby son for the first overnight trip since his birth. Then, in "a stunning demonstration of concern between two women of very different political views," Obama leaned over and appeared to whisper, "Everything OK?"

I am myself stunned that a simple of act of polite human kindness, inquiring after someone in visible distress, is worthy of the description "stunning demonstration." Two people with contradictory opinions can't act like decent humans without stunning us? I think they can, and I hope they will.

Being Human

I will meticulously check the size and position of every text box in my PowerPoint presentation to ensure they are exactly the same.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with the permanent detritus that floats on the floor below the bed.

Completely Worthless Advice

Take it from an expert: Watching a scary movie in order to scare yourself away from sleep is worthless advice on how to pull an all-nighter. After all, the purpose of the all-nighter is most likely to finish work or homework or bake 5 batches of cookies for your child's class party tomorrow. You do not have time to be watching scary movies.

I much prefer the time-tested method of drinking lots of liquids, taking frequent breaks, praying fervently, and refusing to just "rest for a few minutes." I'll let you know how it works out this time!

The Original Big Guy

Happy Father's Day to the best car-fixing, cartoon-watching, belly-laughing, direction-giving, rocky road-loving dad around!

Auntie K by the Numbers

Age: 37

Height: 63"

Small electric appliances in the kitchen: 10

Age at first kiss: 15 or 16

Library books at home: 21

Nephews: 1

Nieces: 4

Pets: 0

Email accounts: 5

Hours slept last night: 10

But Does it Work?

Have my knit-wise readers seen KnitPicks dye it yourself sock blanks?

For you non-knitters, the explanation is that self-striping yarns are popular in some knitting circles: the yarn is dyed in such a manner that when you knit it into socks or another item, stripes or patterns magically appear (see the example at left).

The sock blanks are machine knit blank swatches, so you paint your stripes on the swatch and then, without even unraveling the swatch, knit from it to make your socks.

If it works, I think it would be a lot of fun.

Since I've never knit a pair of socks, and in fact have still not finished Baby Jack's Christmas stocking, I probably should not attempt this right now.
Photo by: Hello Lovely

Looking Forward, or, An Ohio Evening

I just made plans with my dear friend eb to go to Ohio over Labor Day. She's offered many invitations over the years, but in the past I've demurred with excuses of work, penury, or school. Those excuses still exist (work and school are now combined, since I work at a school), but I'm going to say "What the heck" and do it anyway. I'm feeling happy about having another fun trip to look forward to. Also, buying a ticket to Ohio will put me even closer to another Southwest award ticket, which I promise will be used to go to Texas.

The trip agenda includes eb's high school reunion, which should be infinitely less painful than my own reunion, which is also this summer (Mom, are you certain you already threw away my invite?). Two of eb's siblings are getting married (not to each other, of course!) in August and will have an open house in Ohio that weekend, we'll drive through Amish Country, and visit some of the Ohio LDS historical sites like the John Johnson home. Maybe I can even wrangle a meet-up with the original sources of my aunthood and their younger sister, who are just a hop, skip, and a jump from Ohio.

(Soundtrack for this post is my latest download, "Look at Miss Ohio," on Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains (Music from the Motion Picture), performed by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, with additional vocals by Gaida Hinnaw).

Looking Back

I gave a coworker my blog URL today, so of course I had to come home and post and add some tags so he doesn't think I'm totally lame (You see, I obviously don't care if my current readers think I'm totally lame!).

While adding tags, I looked at this old To Do List. It's particularly amusing to read it in "Edit Posts" view, where the bulleted list shows up as an unpunctuated runon sentence. It turns out I have actually done a few things on that list in the two years since I wrote it. For example,

I have a tiny little Flickr account (it would be better if I saw nieces and nephews more often, so I wouldn't have to take photos of myself and my groceries) (thanks for the comments, Starr--you're my Flickr idol.)

I have a Bloglines account, though I haven't logged on in the past two years.

I have a digital camera, an updated resume, a job as the result of those job apps, a Library Thing account, a wiki (that wasn't even on the list), and my car is registered, though not in the same state.

I never taught myself CSS or updated my online portfolio and I still don't drink enough water.

But I passed Capstone and graduated, and I've even taken a few showers since then.

Bizarro Auntie K

Remember Bizarro Jerry? While I was "running" at the track last week and thinking about what an unnatural act that is for my body, I started to wonder about Bizarro Auntie K. Here's what I think she's like:

Tall and willowy
An early riser
Doesn't own a watch or a calendar
A great volleyball player
A healthfood nut
Tone deaf
She finishes EVERYthing she starts

How I Spent My Non-Vacation

I feel guilty that I haven't posted recently, especially since a reader told me that the first thing she does when she turns on the computer is check to see if I've posted anything new.

Problem is, it doesn't seem like there's much to tell these days, and I don't have children, pets, or a spouse to blog about, which makes it seem all the harder to come up with things to tell.

Anyway, enough blathering. Here's what I've been up to:

1) Absolutely LOVING not getting up to go to Seminary. I think about some of the students sometimes and I miss seeing them, but the break really is wonderful.

2) Catching up on some of my reading. Many evenings, I just come home and read until it's time to go to bed.

3) Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the things I've said "yes" to at work. In fact, I'm writing this post right now on a "break" from some work-work.

4) Very much looking forward to a July trip, with my dear mother, to see my dear aunt. I'm already thinking I should have planned to stay longer than I'm going to, and I'm already thinking about how hard I will cry when I have to go home, but I also know it will be a wonderful trip.

5) Starting to be really disgusted by what a pigsty my apartment is, but as of yet, I haven't done much about it.

6) Trying valiantly to go to the track or use the home rowing machine when I can. I'm noticeably plumper than when I moved here last year, and I would like to change that. No visual progress so far.

7) Taking a few photos when I can. Really not much interesting, but here's one I took of myself over the weekend. Friday and Saturday I was at Montgomery Bell State Resort Park for a Tennessee Library Association Leadership Conference and Board Meeting (I'm the incoming chair of the nearly-dormant Instruction Roundtable). We stayed overnight and had workshops and meetings on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

So, what have YOU been up to?


I call this "Self-Portrait with Flash." I've obviously never mastered the mirror self photograph trick.