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Saturday, May 17, 2008

  • Quote of the week

    Jen wins this one.

    The scene: We went out for drinks Thursday to discuss her quickly-approaching bachelorette party, which I, as her unofficial matron of honor, am attempting to help plan. To our left, an older gentleman, sitting by himself, generally bothering the bartendresses and sending back his appetizer orders repeatedly. To our right, a pair of men about our age, one in a suit and the other in an ill-considered Pac-Man T shirt, who continued to stare extremely obviously at us throughout the night.

    "Don't worry," Jen said. "If they come over here, we'll just flash them our ring fingers."

    Her ring finger is, of course, sparkling with diamonds. Mine is stamped "True Love Waits."

    Honestly, the ring seemed like a good idea when I was 18 and attending a Lutheran high school. Now it's just cheesy and slightly embarassing, but it's too noticeable after six years to ditch without everyone thinking I've changed my mind about that whole "waiting" thing. I haven't, but I'm not sure if that fact or the wedding-looking ring on my finger was meant to repel Pac-Man and Co.

    This apparently just occured to Jen as the words left her mouth. And here comes our quote of the week:

    "Hey, is that a 'True Love Waits' ring? Can I see it? I've heard they exist, but I've never actually seen one before."

    And just like that, I became a mythical creature. The mythical, still-slightly-cheesy, 24-year-old virgin, wearer of The One Ring.

    Also, yes, I am the matron of honor. Not maid. Meaning I'm going to have to get married in the next four weeks or I'm going to be seriously shirking my responsibilities at Jen's wedding.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

  • Currently Reading
    God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (With the Complete Text of The End for Which God Created the World)
    By John Piper
    see related

    A life of moral stuntedness

    I started going to Concordia University Chicago when I was about 2 years old.

    I wasn't taking classes. Not that I can recall. Apparently, my parents handed me over to let the kids studying for education and M.R.S. degrees watch me or test me or practice on me or implant microchips under my skin coded with the Mark of the Beast. They can't recall exactly what I was doing there either. When
    Sarah started at Concordia, I asked her to look into this, see if they're still tracking me. She couldn't find anything.

    But this weekend my mom found the results of some other tests to which I was subjected, a "child observation testing assignment" my uncle completed for nursing school. It was one of many things, including a slew of my own baby pictures she foisted upon me this weekend when she and my dad came up to Naperville for Mother's Day weekend to look at apartments. Better those cherished family memories junk up my apartment than hers ...

    Emilannie

    That's me, right. You can tell because my cowlick-y, Polish hairstyle hasn't changed much, or at all, in 22 years. Nor, apparently, has my tendency to "think a little preoperational moral-wise."

    The paper starts:

    Emily, the oldest, is six years 10 months old. She is 4 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 66 pounds. She was five weeks premature at birth. She has light brown hair and will be in the second grade this fall. Emily is a sensitive child and a fast learner. At times her understanding and speech seems to be quite advanced for a child her age.

    Annie, her sister, is five years 11 months old. She is four feet tall and weighs 50 pounds. Annie will start first grade this fall. Annie has dark hair. She's a little more soft spoken and not as outgoing as Emily. She plays more physically than Emily, who is more into books and art.

    ... I then asked Emily if she would come into the kitchen so I could do some testing on her. She didn't mind leaving the game, she loves to be tested.

    The first few tests yielded entirely unsurprising results: I am a nerd! I like books! I have a freakish memory. I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Annie can put toothpicks in order of length.

    Then we started testing my moral aptitude. If I was the only witness to a fight at school and the principal asked me if my best friend was involved and he/she was, would I say what I saw and why?

    When I asked Emily this question she said yes she would say what she saw. When I asked her why she said she would have to if she (her friend) did something wrong. Then I said, "What if it would get her into trouble?" and Emily said, "It wasn't the right thing to do." Then I said, "But wouldn't you like to help a friend?" And Emily said "No, because it's not the right thing to do."

    This answer, my uncle wrote, was below my age level, indicative of "a kind of belief in a golden rule of right and wrong that her friend broke" and my "egocentrism in not being able to think about it from her friends point of view."

    I seriously question this conclusion. I also seriously question my uncle's disregard for the comma. And the apostrophe. And his qualifications to play moral arbiter. I'm not sure a professed belief in the Golden Rule makes me a selfish, ego-driven retard with the moral capacity of a 5-year-old. (To be honest, I'm not even sure "telling the truth" falls under the banner of the Golden Rule.)

    Nor my answer to a question regarding whether Jack stealing a yo-yo from a dime store for himself or Jill cracking open the store's cash register and stealing $100 for a poor woman committed a more serious crime. I said Jill did. And I've read enough police reports to be pretty sure police would still agree with me.

    I think those answers make me
    Lutheran. And a terrible postmodern. I still am.

    The test most indicative of the future personality of my sister
    Annie, the pretty one who is much-preferred by the opposite sex?

    Question 19 on my assignment sheet reads ... 2-12 year olds: Who do you like to play with (if boys or girls rather than names are given, record that)? Can you tell me who your friends are?"

    Results: I asked Annie these questions and to the first question she answered boys. When I asked her who her friends are she said Adam and Bradley.

    Interpretation: Although Annie has some girl friends, her next door neighbors are two little boys named Adam and Bradley and she spends most of her playing time with them. I believe Annie and Adam said something about getting married some day.

    Some things never change. But that's coming from me, the morally stunted anti-postmodernist.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

  • Currently Listening
    Old Friends
    By Simon & Garfunkel
    For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
    see related

    Emily rocks!

    I think this started in college as a self esteem-building exercise.

    I mean searching the Internet for songs with my name -- Emily -- in the title. Has anybody else ever done this? No? Just me?

    It's not like I have one of those names made famous in song like The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" or The Police's "Roxanne" or even Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Building my iTunes playlist -- optimistically titled "Emily Rocks!" -- has taken some effort. But it would be well worth it, I thought when I started, to craft a collection of wistful love songs written about me. Songs about my great beauty and undeniable feminine charm. Songs that would give the ol' self esteem a boost every time I listened to them.

    As it turns out, there are a lot more songs about me than I had imagined. Apparently I was very popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the consensus seems to be Emilys are bizarre women who lead lonely, tragic lives.

    For instance, Pink Floyd released a song called "See Emily Play" on their 1970 album Masters of Rock. Unfortunately, I don't so much play in the song as I do "(try), but misunderstands / She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dreams till tomorrow."

    Then there's this part: Soon after dark, Emily cries / Gazing through trees in sorrow, hardly a sound till tomorrow.

    Elton John, in his 1992 song simply titled "Emily," has this to say about me: Emily walks through the cemetery / Past a dog in an unmarked grave / The old girl hobbles, nylons sagging / Talks to her sisters in the ground.

    The Zombies' 1968 paeon in my honor, "A Rose for Emily," is so horribly depressing it really needs to be presented in its entirety:

    The summer is here at last
    The sky is overcast
    And no one brings a rose for Emily

    She watches her flowers grow
    While lovers come and go
    To give each other roses from her tree
    But not a rose for Emily

    Emily, can't you see
    There's nothing you can do?
    There's loving everywhere
    But none for you

    Her roses are fading now
    She keeps her pride somehow
    That's all she has protecting her from pain

    And as the years go by
    She will grow old and die
    The roses in her garden fade away
    Not one left for her grave
    Not a rose for Emily

    Emily, can't you see
    There's nothing you can do?
    There's loving everywhere
    But none for you


    "A Rose for Emily" is also the title of an equally cheery short story by William Faulkner. In it, I am an eccentric spinster who inexplicably poisons her lover, then shares a bed with his rotting corpse for 40 years until her own, eventual death.

    Really? No, I mean ... honestly? Is this the picture people are getting when I introduce myself? Is there any other name about which more unfortunate songs are written?

    Ah, well. At least Simon & Garfunkel are on my side. I like them best anyway.

peachjolyranchr

  • Visit peachjolyranchr's Xanga Site
    • Name: Emily Mc
    • Country: United States
    • State: Illinois
    • Metro: Chicago
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 5/21/2004

About Me

  • I'm a twenty-something Midwestern-girl-gone-East-Coast (and back again ... for now!) chasing God and adventure, a career in the media ... and a rock with a broom.

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Proverbs

  • I'm watching Bridget Jones' Diary. An ex once compared me to Bridget Jones. Probably a bad sign. (He was no Colin Firth, though!)
  • HAPPY SUPER TUESDAY!!! Don't forget to vote if your state's holding an election today!
  • Should ever you wish to romance me, might I suggest Nat King Cole's "Too Marvelous for Words?" You had me at Webster's Dictionary.