Food and Friends

Hi guys. This weekend I'm failing at homework, which is super convenient since I don't really have a ton to accomplish. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty I could be doing, and my not doing it just means that during the week I'll have to get to business (i.e. dole out some biznass) after class, but in substantially less time-consuming quantities than ever before.

So... basically what I'm telling you is that for the first time ever I have the opportunity to procrastinate. And I am clinging to it as steadfastly and unwaveringly as a baby koala to its mama.

Do I say "steadfast" and "unwavering" too much? I apologize if that's the case, and I hope that you would let me know. And, if you hate it, please know that I ripped it off of a David Cross comedy album in which he uses those extremely illustrative terms to describe racism in the South. Basically I'm saying that if you hate me I blame David Cross. In fact, I feel that David Cross would be supportive of that, so I'm just going to go ahead and blame all of my shortcomings on that comedic genius.

Also? That baby koala thing? It totally reminded me of the Oprah show that aired earlier this week in which she interviewed that lady who got her face ripped off by a chimpanzee. That segment changed me for life because A) I will never view Oprah the same way, and B) That woman made me see life differently. In a way that I would never have tuned in to were it not for her positivity. As a matter of fact, every time I think of the weakness with which I personally would have dealt with her situation, I cry. Because I'm sure there are moments when she just needs a good, all-out, bent-over, heaving, gasping cry. And she can't have it. Because the poor woman is physically incapable of that type of release.

Next time you're depressed and feeling sorry for yourself, think about that. I know I will.

Speaking of self-indulgent emotions. I've kind of been the queen of them lately. Although I am doing something with my life that I find fulfilling, and I do believe that I'm on the right path, the road? It is daunting. And me? I'm the queen of self-doubt. Luckily, I'm also the queen of reverse psychology, bull shitting, and posturing, and those traits manage to get even the weakest (read: me) through the toughest of times.

But I would be lying if I didn't admit to finding despair in my pointlessness on more than one occasion. And in those moments, two quotes come to mind. The first by Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without you consent." The second I believe to be from Anthony Hopkins, but he quite possibly could have gotten it from someone else (no disrespect to Mr. Hopkins, it's just that the wisdom is so universal that it had to have been kicking around for centuries before his time), "Be bold and the mighty forces will come to your aid."

I find that the majority of gutless, self-doubting moments can be cured by one of these two sentiments. I hope they provide you with the same relief.

On a day that I was particularly down, last Sunday actually, I was lamenting the loss of my life to others i.e. work and school, and was reminded what life is truly about. Without having been asked, just because they are friends, Lauren and Josh stopped by our house with my favorite dish of all time, plus dessert, and wine.

That gesture, which seemed so small to my two friends: it was a life vest. Scratch that, it was a life jacuzzi in the middle of a frigid tundra. I know that's dramatic, but it's also true, and, if you've been reading this for any length of time, you know that drama is one thing I'm guaranteed to deliver.

This Sunday, occurring concurrently with this entry, is a soup failure of epic proportions. While I'm sure my friends (hi, Hailey and Lars!) are astounded and oh so proud that I'm actually attempting to cook, they should know that although my split pea soup sure tastes good, it looks and tastes absolutely nothing like split pea soup.

I'll post the recipe later with all of my learning experiences.

PS - The recipe is from Food & Wine—I have the wine part nailed
PPS - Have I done any wedding planning? Of course not! But, if I ever do, you'll be the first to know.

In case you missed it

The Derek and Matt Colbert Report segment:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Mormon Church Trespassing
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Invitation Inspiration

We're tossing around the notion of leterpressing unusual animals on each of our invitations... Even potentially sending each invitee a unique little guy all there own with no one else having another thing like it! How very special... That reminds me of when we were kids and you had to sing about how we're all V.I.Ps (you know, very important peeps). Anywho, this pictorial webster's dictionary is a definite inspiration for this little project.

Logos

On my love designing an interior design logo for me:

ME: i love you. thank you. i can't emphasize enough how much i appreciate your talent

HAIGEN: you're so nice.

ME: especially since the logo i designed for myself makes me want to methodically fillet my skin off.*



*Yes, I am dramatic, but you guys don't even understand the horror. It looks like my aesthetic is somewhere in between "Polygamist Cowgirl" and "Victorian Syphilis Epidemic Whorehouse."

And here's a little something...

...that made me happy today.

Animals Make The Perfect Humans

Colbert Report

EVERYONE! Tonight my friends Derek and Matt (of LDS-plaza-kissing-scandal fame) will be on the Colbert Report. Watch it!

Here's a lil' snippet of genius to tide you over:

The Word - Don't Ask Don't Tell

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Ayn Rand

I’ll readily admit that I have never read Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I will also admit that the beliefs held by fans of Ms. Rand’s work have told me enough about it to know that I would find it appalling. However, after reading this brilliant article, I am now determined to read both of these epics. Not because of the way these works have been viewed in the past (as philosophy) but rather out of morbid interest in one woman’s deep derangement / psychosis / amphetamine-fueled ranting.

Here are a few choice excerpts:

“Ayn Rand is one of America's great mysteries. She was an amphetamine-addicted author of sub-Dan Brown potboilers, who in her spare time wrote lavish torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that ‘the masses’—her readers—were ‘lice’ and ‘parasites’ who scarcely deserved to live. Yet she remains one of the most popular writers in the United States... She regularly tops any list of books that Americans say have most influenced them.”

“In elementary school, her class was asked to write an essay about why being a child was a joyous thing. She instead wrote ‘a scathing denunciation of childhood,’ headed with a quote from Pascal: ‘I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.’”

“She was determined to live in the America she had seen in the silent movies—the America of skyscrapers and riches and freedom. She renamed herself Ayn Rand, a name she thought had the hardness and purity of a Hollywood starlet.”

“She announced that the world was divided between a small minority of Supermen who are productive and ‘the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent’ who, like the Leninists, try to feed off them. He is ‘mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned.’ It is evil to show kindness to these ‘lice’: The ‘only virtue’ is ‘selfishness.’”

“The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented ‘the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.’ She called him ‘a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy,’ shimmering with ‘immense, explicit egotism.’ Rand had only one regret: ‘A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough.’”

“As her books became mega-sellers, Rand surrounded herself with a tightly policed cult of young people who believed she had found the One Objective Truth about the world. They were required to memorize her novels and slapped down as ‘imbecilic’ and ‘anti-life’ by Rand if they asked questions.”

“Rand had become addicted to amphetamines while writing The Fountainhead, and her natural paranoia and aggression were becoming more extreme as they pumped though her veins. Anybody in her circle who disagreed with her was subjected to a show trial in front of the whole group in which they would be required to repent or face expulsion.”

“In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because it symbolized ‘man's victory over fire’ and the studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda… In 1982, she died alone in her apartment with only a hired nurse at her side. If her philosophy is right—if the only human relationships worth having are based on the exchange of dollars—this was a happy and victorious death.”

The article’s author, Johann Hari, goes on to draw brilliant parallels about Ms. Rand’s philosophies and our current political tragedy. It’s definitely worth a read, and I’ll be picking up one of her biographies immediately.