From the movie Shine

It was one of those little moments in life where everything becomes crystal clear.

Years and years ago. English 400-something. Summer course. American Lit. Very…strange…professor. Lemme talk about her for a sec.

I forget her name. I forget what she looks like. I remember a whole lot about her:

1) In the span of one year, she had been violently raped in her home by a stranger. Twice. Not the same stranger. And yet she was…

2) …annoyingly cheerful and filled with joy.

3) She was a complete ditz.

4) She was an evangelical Christian who got married in the Loose Park rose garden in a Buddhist ceremony.

5) She had a completely random way of teaching. If you could call it teaching.

6) One of the first things she said to the class (with great exuberance) was “I want to fuck your minds!”

7) She taught me one of the single most important lessons I have ever learned, so whatever I don’t remember about Prufrock or Leaves of Grass (and surely don’t care a whit), it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the life-changing thing she taught me.

I don’t remember the text under discussion. She rarely used it, anyway (goodbye $90 for yet another Norton’s). She made the shocking proposition (prompted by some discussion of Judaism that had nothing to do with American lit) that Eve may not have sinned by eating the apple, and that they had to eat the fruit for them to have children, to know good and evil, joy and sorrow, and that Adam was just too chickenshit to do it, so she took the initiative.

It was like the sun came out. My quiet contempt of her scatteredness vanished. I was so excited I went all Horshack OOOh OOOh OOOh!!! Mistah Kottah!!! Mistah Kottah!!!

I blurted, “Yes! That’s it! That’s exactly what happened!”

Suddenly, she was all business, totally sober, like an English professor should be. She stared at me and said, “No, that’s what you believe happened.”

I was embarrassed. The class was silent, but not looking at me. There were no contemptuous snickers at me, even though I probably deserved them. I suspect it was as much a teaching moment for a lot of other people as it was for me. How had I gotten to be a senior in college without having learned this? How had any of us?

Life-changing? Exaggeration? No. She distilled an entire lifetime of being told this is the truth and there is no other truth, and those who don’t believe this truth are worthy only of our contempt and then shattered it.

(As it happens, my playlist popped up with the soundtrack of Shine: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, hence the name of the post and appropriate track.)

Yesterday I happened upon a post by a well-educated adult who, for all her proclamations of learning empathy through fiction, displayed none for a flesh-and-blood woman. She proudly told of her shock and horror at this woman’s lack of understanding of The Truth, drew several condescending conclusions from what little the woman had told her, and then went on to pity her. I guess that’s the empathy part.

Yet she didn’t actually ask the woman why she did not buy into The Truth and made no effort to understand someone else’s point of view. Whether the author of the post agreed or not was irrelevant; it didn’t occur to her to ask why the woman felt that way. It didn’t even occur to her to think up possible reasons for the woman’s viewpoint.

I still believe that my truth is The Truth, but every once in a while I get shocked out of my comfy little philosophy by someone who thinks her Truth is or should be everyone else’s.

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I make this with different measurements all the time because A) it depends on what I have on hand; B) I never measure; and C) I can’t be arsed to write it down. This is how I made it today, and all measurements are approximate:

3 lb hamburger
1 diced yellow onion
1 T minced garlic (I use the stuff in the jars)
salt
pepper
1/4 c basil (dried)
1/2 c oregano (dried)
1/2 c parsley (dried)

Fry all that up together, then drain off the grease.

5 4-oz cans mushroom pieces and stems (with water)
2 cans tomato sauce
5 cans tomato paste
water to make it the consistency you like

Mix all that up really well, let simmer for a while with the lid on it. On low, you could keep it on the stove all day if you wanted. The idea is to let the herbs steep. I’ll add more oregano* once I get it stirred up, as I like oregano. Lots.

Serve on whatever shaped of pasta (cooked) that you like.

If I have stewed tomatoes on hand, I’ll use those. If I have whole tomatoes on hand, I’ll blanch, peel, and use those. I don’t use olive oil because I think the beef provides all the oil necessary, and I’m not a fan of olive oil anyway.

As we all know, this is a heavy dish. When I’m low-carbing, I can have a bowl of it for breakfast (yes, I said breakfast) without the pasta (with parmesan) and I won’t have to think about eating again until bedtime. No matter how much I love it, though, I will never get over thinking it’s weird to eat it without the pasta.

It freezes well, and one of these days, if I ever get around to learning how to can, this is the first thing I’m going to can.

*Went to a Mexican restaurant where they loaded their salsa with oregano. WTF? I went for Mexican food, not Italian. A little was good. A lot was not better.

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This is my office right now:

It doesn’t look organized, but it is. It’s organized two ways, and one is more effective than the other.

You see, the (1) clutter demands attention and for good reason: It’s important. Stuff I have to do. Stuff that, if I file it neatly away in the (2) three-ring to-do binder buried underneath all that mess, I will forget about and never do and screw up my life.

The goal is to not screw up my life.

But what about filing? you ask. Eh. Filing is for stuff you have to keep but rarely use: tax returns, vendor catalogs, vehicle and health and vet information. Stuff like that. If I had my ’druthers, I’d be able to stick it all in a file box like the one I keep my year’s tax receipts in after I’ve entered the bucket full of receipts into Quicken.

What about tossing? you ask. Yeah, what you’re looking at is after having ruthlessly tossed and shredded. Trust me, I get rid of whatever I can the minute I lay hands on it and determine it’s worthless to me.

So after ruthlessly tossing-and-shredding, and piling things on my desk in a way that will remind me of its importance, the best way I’ve discovered to not screw up my life and still stay clutter-free is to hang all the important stuff up on the wall.

This demands cork. Or steel/whiteboards magnets. Something. Just get it off my effing desk! I want elbow room and work space. Throw in some effective cord management.

Stylishly.

I want style.

Because there is no style here. I can stick pins in the sheetrock all day long and it’ll do the trick, but I want some style. Martha Stewart Living style. Only more realistic. And cheaper.

So what I’m working on in my organizational efforts is to find a stylish way to hang all my stuff on the walls where I can see it at a glance without boxing myself into a stylish but useless and expensive space.

But I can’t even decide on a paint color.

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Week 3 of the group creative experiment was over a week and a half ago, and I think we were all running out of steam by then. I was supposed to post this on April 21, but that was my birthday. Dude took me out for a nice dinner and a really cute movie (Death at a Funeral, in case you were wondering) and, frankly, I was too tired to do the wrapup. And then I got busy.

It was just me and Astrid this week. Here we go:

Astrid Cruz aka @artistikem “Ghost”: Oh. My. Goodness. That gave me chills. Y’all MUST read this.

And so here’s what it did for me: Chapter 34, Stay, “A Good Crop of Wheat.”

Thank you!

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Please see The Rules.

Sospiro (Franz Liszt)

Go!

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I want to talk about LDS fiction, the kind Deseret Book and Covenant and Cedar Fort publish.

This is not a rant. I’m not being sarcastic, nasty, snarky, hateful, bitter, or any other pejorative one might chalk up to my tone. Whatever one might read into it, what I’m feeling right now is a deep sense of disappointment.

I have several LDS novels in my bookshelf by well-known LDS niche authors. There are two I have tried to start, but while the premises are interesting, they aren’t exactly my cuppa. The prose is adequate. They aren’t boring. I put them aside for when I’m in the mindset to read them.

This past week I started a book that’s right up my alley: contemporary romance. I was really looking forward to reading this book. Imagine my dismay when I started reading prose that is amateurish at worst, and at best, suited for 12-year-old girls. It is a series of choppy sentences strung together. There is no discernible rhythm to it. There is no ebb and flow. The dialogue is stilted and too infodumpy about LDS customs and rituals, which made me wonder for whom the book was intended, if not LDS. (We already know this stuff; don’t instruct us in our own culture.) There is no nuance, no allowance for a sophisticated reader, no subtext.

At the convergence of this post on the Association for Mormon Letters blog by Annette Lyon concerning the “clean”ness of books and an inability to find any clean romances in the national marketplace* and my soul-deep disappointment in the book I was struggling with (“soul-deep” is not hyperbole), I realized that LDS fiction needs to stop worrying about a book’s “clean”ness, because that’s the default position, and start concentrating on eradicating (sub)mediocrity.

*I’m not sure why it’s important, noteworthy, or desirable to have LDS fiction without LDS characters or anything relatable to the culture. You can get “clean” non-LDS fiction in the national marketplace. You cannot get LDS fiction in the national marketplace. If you’re gonna be niche, be niche.

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Please see The Rules.

Asking Us To Dance (Kathy Mattea)

Go!

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