email from Grandma

"I had to send an e-mail first thing this morning, so here I am to say "Hi, how 'ya doing dear?" What is happening in your life these days? Hope nothing but good things!!! When I see the morning news coming from N.Y. I marvel at the pace everyone keeps and the incredible traffic jams. How are you handling all that....expecially since you come from Cottonwood. Guess when you are young, it's exciting to be a part of the big apple. Did you take that position in the Catholic school? See, I'm full of questions! We are doing fine here in the Ozarks. Bowling season is over and I received the award for the most improved bowler of the season......yeah!!!!!! Gramps and I still go bowling by ourselves on Fridays which is fun. His life consists of taking long naps and sitting at the computer. We still hold hands occasionally when he plops himself on the sofa beside me in the evening. How great is that after being married 60 years! Hope you find someone to share your life with who truly appreciates the beautiful person you are. Don't ever change!!!! Love you, Gram Z."

no one else, Grandma, I promise.

luscious hair convention

when my sister and I would see a number of people in a certain area all with similar characteristics we would claim that there must have just been a convention of some sort. A miniskirt convention. A weather forecaster convention. A neon coolots convention.
I had the opportunity the other day to ride home on the same train with what must have been the remnants of a luscious hair convention for men. In one train car I saw four men with shoulder length to long hair, all them perfectly product-ed and swingy, some with curls, some wavy, all with that Pantene shakeability and the "come on, just touch me" siren song of up and coming Fabios. And despite my inability to look away, I was reminded of a personal motto: never date a man whose hair is more luscious than your own. Amend that--never date a man who has any physical characteristic that can be qualified as "luscious."

family

cleaning off my desktop I found this journal entry from last November...

11/28/05
Family is such an interesting topic. I have found my mind drawn out to it these last few months. Something about fall makes the idea of family run more freely in my blood.
I believe, unconditionally, that families have a right to be protected and to stay together. I believe that any family can decide to love one another and that divorce does not have to happen. I believe that I can do everything in my power and in God’s power to help my family stay together, both my current and soon-to-be family.
And yet, I sat just now having a conversation with my co-workers Caroline and Deborah. Caroline is a single mom—she and her boyfriend found out that she was pregnant and they decided to get married. The marriage didn’t last long at all since Caroline’s daughter Emma is about 18 months old and Caroline has not been married for a while, as far as I can tell. She is proud of her beautiful daughter and not ashamed of the circumstances surrounding her birth.
Deborah was adopted as a baby by a missionary couple. She was raised in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Her birth mother grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Apparently she was a bit of a loose young woman. When a bit older her parents moved to Chicago and she ended up marrying the boy across the street who went and joined the Navy. While this fellow was gone, she would go back up to Green Bay and have trysts with her high school sweetheart. Thus Deborah was born.
Deborah herself married when she was in her twenties. From what I understand, her relationship with her husband was fairly platonic and they ended up adopting two Chinese children, Emily and Ben. Eventually they divorced and a short while later Deborah met Barbara, who has since become her partner. They have been together for a number of years now.
Deborah spoke of meeting her birth mother a few years ago and how she was so glad that she met her as well as very glad that she wasn’t raised by her. I commented that I felt the same way about my biological father. We both spoke to Caroline about how we felt growing up, knowing that we were adopted. I told her how I felt no lack; how my dad has never been and never will be my “step” dad, but how I was sealed to him through temple covenants, and that is the same thing as being born to him. I spoke of how grateful I was to my mom for always being so respectful of Bill, but also that she didn’t allow him to be a presence in my life. As a result I was never confused, I never needed to feel that my dad was my step dad because he wasn’t, he was my dad, my father, completely and wholly and no one else existed that could by any rights or means take that place.
It’s funny, I know that doctrinally and even logically the ideal situation is to be born into a family whole in its foundation. But I just wouldn’t change my history. And I felt joy in Deborah’s and Caroline’s stories. Life isn’t tragic—not even when we live it differently from the way that offers the greatest joy. And we can find joy in our mistakes and our struggles, the Lord allows us that. True, wickedness never was happiness. But babies are happiness. And connections are happiness. And the Lord wants our happiness. The question is only how much are we willing to accept into our lives? There is a greater amount of happiness, I believe, in being able to create children with the person you love the most in the world, sealed to him by the power of the holy priesthood.

in all reality

One of the reasons that I didn't want to start a blog is because most of my thoughts tend to be on one topic and I feel like they are more journal-type-share-with-my-friends-and people-who-understand-me thoughts and not-to-be-aired-in-public-type thoughts. But then I realized that the only people who will ever read my blog are people who know me anyway and that the really personal things I do only place in my journal so I really can talk about that which occupies my mind which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the way that I feel about it and the way that I understand it and the way that our minds expand and the instant you begin to grasp ahold of one detail of one eternal principle you also find an entire black hole (white hole? because its the fulness of light?) of information inspiration and how there is no end to our learning and progression and we need to just keep asking questions. The cool thing is though, that there are answers!! All of them! And we can get a ton of them here and a ton of them later and dang, I love learning about the things that really, really matter.

black

black makes it look least empty. less committment. if i don't feel like blogging anything, i can get away with it because i used black and black fills in the holes.