"You Don't Know What It's Like to Be Like Me"

It's hard to be me. I know you'll all sit back and say, Well, it's hard to be me too, kid, suck it up and deal with it.

That is not my point. You misread me. Jerks. The emphasis was not on "hard," it was on "me." And since none of you are me (not even those of you who really, really want to be me; we live in reality, people), you don't know what it's like. Bart is sooooo awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I promise to wear his ring forever.

...To continue. You don't know what it's like to be me. The pressure to always BE ME. What if I don't want to be me today? I can't take a vacation. I can't slam a resignation on some bigshot's desk, shooting him a haughty look and striding defiantly out the door.

Okay. Yes, I possibly could. My point? I know that bad things always happen when you start taking yourself too seriously. That shouldn't be a problem; goodness knows it took me nineteen years to learn how to have a serious conversation. (And even now, that octopus will find its way into things... I pity those of you who have not witnessed the octopus.) What happens, though, when you become conscious of the fact that you deliberately don't take yourself seriously? Then you walk a fine, delicate line, flirting with insanity the way Charlotte flirts with hockey players.

The moral of the story? Everyone deserves a blog entry like this. I think it would lead to more world unity if everyone understood that no one understands, and then accepted anyway.

[Writing credits are shared jointly by Liz and Bart. I'm sure a careful observer will be able to figure out who wrote what.]

"Got to Give the People What They Want, Rock Star"

Through some award-winning sneakiness, we have now pinned down the name of Rock Star. It is Ely Something. We're pretty sure. Anyway, I hope it is, because then I feel a particularly strong connection to Rock Star-dom. Since my name begins E-l-i. I'm going to have people call me that from now on.

It's only fitting, because I certainly feel like a rock star. Not only am I on Google, but if I play my cards right, I'm the Number One Hit, baby.

I like to use capitalization to make myself feel more important. Perks of the Plan Leader, capital P, capital L. But you can call me Eli.

"hope you're listening carefully and know exactly what I mean"

I know you've all been waiting for this...

Any and all who read this, feel free to post, and I'll reply (even if you want to do it anonymously and add your name at the bottom)... and also, feel free to tell your friends or others, so they can post if they'd like. Open, honest, and PUBLIC information can solve a lot of problems, I think.
1. Reply to this post, because I would like to say a few words about you.
2. I will also tell you what song(s) reminds me of you when I hear it.
3. I will also tell you what celebrity/public (or fictional) person you remind me of, either personality-wise or looks-wise.
4. I will also give ONE WORD that I associate with you when I think of you.
5. We all could use a boost now and then, so steal this for your journal and make someone else's day as well.

Commence with the fun!

"We'll Still Have Our Stories of Battle Scars, Pirate Ships and Wounded Hearts, Broken Bones, and All the Best of Friendships"

Hello, old friend. I've missed writing in you every day. I could list a lot of excuses, but I've done too much excusing of myself lately, and it won't change the fact that you've been neglected.

I didn't mean to fall away. I didn't mean to do a lot of things in the past year that I've done. Guess that means I'm not perfect; and I guess only you would know how good that feels. There are a lot of saved posts in your dashboard that I've never posted, huh? Do you ever get tired of holding them? Do you ever wonder if and when I'll ever publish them? Yeah, me too. It's not my fault I forgot how to throw out memories.

The hardest part about writing you is coming up with a good line from a song to title you. I know you can appreciate the cleverness and thought I put into it; we make a great team. And you always look so hot while displaying my thoughts for people to read.

You've been visited a lot by people. Most of them don't comment on you, but they comment to me. And there are probably people who read you that I don't even know about. You're brave, letting all those people read you. I admire that. I'm not one for courage, though I'll admit, I'm a pretty harsh self-critic.

Thank you for everything you've taught me. And thank you for bringing out the best in me. I know not everything has been pretty. There was that infamous incident that blew up in our faces. My face. Since you don't have a face. And it wasn't your fault anyway, I take full responsibility for everything. And there were a couple pretty sad posts. But think of all the whimsy and joy! And the people we've met! And the awkward sentence structures and abysmal punctuation and terribly foreign languages we've encountered along the way! Surfing with you is better than surfing with Dan.

I'm looking forward to the years of memories. To when everyone else gets tired of blogging, but we're still trekking it together. You know how I feel about loyalty and friendship. And never letting go. So thanks.

One of these days, I'll try a little experiment and write a post every time my emotional state changes. Too few of you get to witness me throwing myself on my bed in sheer agony or burble over in contented laughter or stare in wide-eyed horror at a movie or descend into a tirade on basically any subject ever invented; good thing you at least get to witness my superb hyperbole.

One of the reasons I really enjoy Brother Hoskisson's religion classes is that I think he gets that side of me, and it amuses him. Once, I accidentally sent him an e-mail that was intended for Brian. I don't remember the contents of said e-mail, but I know it was enough to reveal a sizable chunk of my pure personality. And he sent me an e-mail back, thanking me for the experience and winked at me in class the next day in his typical exuberantly, secretively knowledgable way.

And today after class, when explaining to him why I warned Deanna away from flirting with boys in the Wilk (because he WILL be in your ward and it WILL end in your leaving burning construction paper trees on his doorstep, or at least plans to), he informed me that no boy on earth deserved to be as happy as I could make him. (So at least find the best one, was the corollary to that.)

And I thought, he's right.

But it still won't get me out of the midterm on Thursday.

"I Laugh to Myself, It Gives Me Hope"

I've been thinking. I've been thinking that a lot of people know me, they know bits and pieces and assemble them and get a complete me out of the mix, filling in with their own perceptions and understandings and ideas of how things should work. I don't even know how that all works. I do the filling in by watching other people, but I know people who ask questions or bond over watching football or exchanging CDs or making dinner or complaining about stupid people or reading each others' blogs or stealing shopping carts or philosophizing on a riverbank or watching others sleep or flipping coins or living together or feeding the ducks or getting into fistfights or racing through raindrops or playing So Tell Me Something or reading theories or going on road trips or digging ditches or counting stars or analyzing dreams or choosing at complete random. That was a long sentence. I'll wait while you reread it and absorb everything. Come back when you're ready.

All done? Fabulous. As I was saying, there are lots of gaps to fill in. And when you ask me how I am and I say, "Fine," and go on discussing other things, I think those gaps are extraordinarily hard to fill.

We all wear masks in our interactions. I don't think it's always from a lack of trust. We're just called upon to play different roles; a mother, a son, a friend, a lover, a leader, a hope-holder, a heartbreaker, a perfect child, a shadow, an enemy. These roles call for specific dialogues, and to keep things running smoothly, well, emotional honesty can get in the way. What would happen if, for every aquaintance who asked how I was, I splurged into a full account of everything?

What also happens if your role becomes to be happy? If you are supposed to be strong and never, ever break? From great expectations can come great things, and we expand to fit the roles we have been given to take. And so I took mine, and I didn't really talk about how I felt. If you believe in something hard enough, it happens, and I found my stability in pretending, finding out how happy I could be because I NEEDED to be happy.

I'm still planning on writing the Great American Novel. I just think it will surprise people what they read in it, if they know me well enough to read between my lines of prose. Life is far worse and far, far better than they expect it to be. And someday... someday, I will bring back the agora.

"I Might Be a Fool, You Might Be One Too"

I came back to the apartment at 5:30 yesterday because I hadn't made my bed and it was unsettling me. I couldn't study anymore on campus knowing that I had left my bedroom so disorderly. Obsessing over stuff like that just isn't conducive to a good frame of mind to absorb Descartes or interpret Genesis non-theologically or help a study group come up with questions for their project on Beowulf.

Then I got back, and I didn't make my bed. And I'm obsessing about it. Still.

I crave order and neatness. I like to have my space, and no one intrudes on that space. My possessions are my friends, and they all have their own personalities. I know I'm personifying hugely, but it's what I do. Trillian is and always will be a wayward, spoiled child to me, and I love it for that. Robots are cold and mechanical and predictable and worthless. Which is probably why I don't like math. You set up a formula, put the numbers in, and get an answer. The answer is, I don't care.

So now you get to tell me about your quirks and oddities and obsessions. It'll only make me love you more.

"But the Irony of the Story is When I Fell to my Knees"

I hate weekends. They're just no good. Maybe if I were more disciplined, but that's something I've yet to learn, and being so undisciplined, it seems unlikely I'll ever have the motivation to learn it. A lovely little Catch-22 there.

I did some great things this weekend. I watched Unbreakable. Twice. I made Jf a birthday card. I learned just how much salsa 700 ounces of tomatoes will make. But mostly, I lazed around and just hung out. For three days. I disgust myself. Life is so much better spent while insanely busy, running around doing fulfilling things. Life would also probably be better if I actually got enough sleep, but something always seems to interject and foil my plans for that.

People are just happier when they feel worthwhile. This is a dangerous time, this single, college-student period, when I'm just kind of floating around, not really contributing anything to society. Sure, I'm building up my potential energy, and when I finally make it to the real world, the fireworks will be plentiful and beauteous. But right now, I could die and NOTHING WOULD CHANGE. I'm not contributing any goods or services to the world, I don't have children I'm raising, I'm not curing cancer or fighting crime, even (that you know of). And when I laze about not building that potential energy, it's even worse.

I just have this intense fear of never mattering. But I don't have much working for me. I'm from a middle-class family, and most kids from those backgrounds never make it anywhere. They're content where they are, and they don't have the resources to do much more. I'm not exceedingly brilliant. I don't have a new system of government to try out. No one is oppressing me. I'm oprressed by my lack of oppression. The end.

"You'll See That No One Knows for Sure"

You people I'm writing this for will probably never read it, but I'm writing it for you anyway.

I'm not being played.

The Urban Dictionary defines a player as a guy who is sustaining supposedly exclusive relationships with multiple girls simultaneously. No player, no playee. Sorry, that's just how it works.

If you have a suggestion for how to resolve anything, I'd love to hear it. Until then, oh the guilt for all the trouble I'm causing.

"To Ink the Lavender Skies"

I have absolutely nothing to write about. Some days, my head is filled with thoughts and I spill them out onto the screen, my fingers barely able to keep up with it all. But today is an empty day. I just feel compelled to write and see what happens, if maybe I can sort through thoughts and find lumps of truth hidden betwixt them like slivers of silver that shine onto the great, silent clouds at night.

It is a melancholy that pervades, latent in my musings. I still haven't found a word for this semester, but I've tossed melancholy around in my mind not a few times. It doesn't exactly make sense, because my days are so filled I don't have time for any emotion except tired. I'm kicking myself out of cynicism, because that world should never become comfortable to me. Agnes is still my hero, shining good and golden before me.

We all reach those times in our lives where the future is clouded over and the world becomes so immensely frightening. I truly have no idea what to do with myself, and while playing it by ear now is fine, I am desperately hoping to find some path to tread before my years of schooling are up and I have to decide. Playing at adulthood cannot go on forever.

I know what I want. But I do not know if I will ever have it.

"I'm Gonne Sit and Consider Flowers"

We went over Aristotle's "you should think philosophically or you should not think philosophically" argument in my philosophy class yesterday. I countered it with the fact that should think does not equal think.

The entire class looked at me as if I had just shot Lassie.

It wasn't like I was saying Aristotle's proof was unsound, I was just questioning it because it seemed a little iffy to me, and I wanted to know what my professor thought.

My point is, this is a philosophy class, not a Gospel Doctinre class (not that I believe you should never challenge things brought up in Gospel Doctrine, but they like to have their safe little world gift-wrapped for them in a nice, neat little package). If you can't handle questioning things, if you think having a name like Aristotle or Socrates gives you automatic infallibility like the Pope, if you want everything handed to you, dull and dry, then why did you choose to take a philosophy class? And why would you gawk absurdly at someone who actually chooses to not baa about, sheep-like?

Because I WILL mock you. And then I will smash your arguments.

If you're going to walk away, then walk away and don't look back. Unless maybe you enjoy being a pillar of salt.

"Riding Phone Lines"

I have four saved messages on my voicemail. And I will be transcribing them for you.

From Bart: "Will you be my valentine? Ha ha!" [I wish you could hear that laugh. It was fabulous. Even more so because he called on December 28th to ask me.]

From Paul: "What's up suga pie? This is Paul. Give me a call back." [Note to boys out there--telling a girl to "turn [her] conscience off" cannot be ameliorated by calling her up later and calling her "sugar pie." It will not work.]

From The Mom: "Hi, it's your mother. I was looking in your drawers. I wasn't snooping.... So give me a call back and I won't be mad. Bye." [Don't YOU wonder what the middle part of the conversation was about. Actually, I just couldn't stand to listen to it all again, I'm sorry. Turns out, I had forgotten to pack my Christmas sweaters and she got mad and threatened me with No More Presents.]

From Rachael: "So Kristin and I are driving to the mall now and Something Corporate is playing in my car and 'Me and the Moon' is on. And, um, there's this great line, "you marry a role." You don't want to do that, k? Right. Because you're a butterfly, and I wouldn't let you die. And if you get married, you'll DIE!!! The end." [This is what happens when you call Rachael and Kristin up to tell them you're going to get married. And you're serious. They call you back and leave you messages like this.]

"I Know Nothing Stays the Same"

In Elizabethan England, order was king. Playwrights created worlds that progressed naturally from chaos back to resolution. Philosophers pondered the Great Chain of Being, with everything set in its place. Fate ruled your life and the stars determined if your love would die a tragic death.

They say the universe moves toward entropy, and I can list many instances where that seems to be the only explanation for the mess all over the floor.

But joy is not in disorder, and as we are supposed to seek after joy, I'm seeing a few problems in that. All I know is, with the way things are, Shakespeare could not compose my life better.

Tom Stoppard, however....

"It's Starting to Get Old"

Cardinal Rules

1. Do not go to other people to find out how I feel. You will get misinformation.

Corollary to 1. If it's preliminary, testing-out-the-waters, it's okay. I will observe who you go to and award you points based on your choice of friends. The most points goes to those who pick the friend who knows the most.

2. Do not start conversations with other people based around how I feel. I am a big girl and can do my own digging, and I will end up just having to find out what was said and make corrections. Thanks, but no thanks.

3. Do not assume because you gave me life that you know me at all.

4. Do not insult me by thinking you know anything about anything. Especially if the only way you know me is by reading this blog.

5. Do not assume you have an all-access pass and your calling and election to the religion of Elizabeth made sure. Ever. Even if you are my best friend. And my best friend knows that.

6. Do not insult me with your presence if you're boring.

7. Do not steal my life. Develop your own personality and get your own life. If we happen to overlap, great. If not, I will learn to hate you.

8. Do not treat me like the trivial friend. Yes, I can discourse on the pros and cons of Cadbury eggs for an hour, but it doesn't mean I want to anymore. I've changed.

Just don't freak out if you break one. Trust me, I'll forgive you, and probably instantly. Except if you break #6. Then I'll avoid you like you're a leper.

"When You Won't Listen to What It's Hard for Me to Say"

I am a naturally private person. I hide things away, storing them, hoarding them, keeping them for my own knowledge, as if it gives me some sort of edge over people. They don't know me. Only I know me, and I delight in that secret knowledge. Secrecy is just a part of my life, a part of my personality. It's why I love conspiring and plotting the same way I love introspection.

That said, I also have friends. And as smart and witty and fun as I might be, that is only enough to develop superficial, boring friendships with people who follow me around like sheep. I hate sheep. I have no problem hanging out with myself, and if only boring people surrounded me, no matter how much they wanted to spoil me, a. I would resist it, and b. I would grow incredibly tired of it and kick them out of my life. Since I don't kick everyone out of my life, and there are still people whose phone calls I welcome and whose words I value and whose time spent with me I never regret, I must go beyond that superficial level, at least with some people.

So I don't keep everything locked away. There is a hierarchy in my friendships as I divulge things, piece by piece. But there is no pattern to these divulgences; I do not have a list of what to tell people when, as if they pass some stage of friendship with me I dispense a portion of my soul like some kind of merit badge. I spread things out, going by how I feel. There are some people who know me so well, that they know what I'm thinking and how I arrived there. People who sometimes know me better than I know myself. People who know what I like and what I don't and what interests me and what bores me and why and how and for how long.

I am a private person. But as much as I like that, I equally hate it. Perhaps I should make a booklet explaining me and detailing every way I feel, with revisions every 3.9 seconds as something changes. I could pass these booklets out to people so they would never break my cardinal rules. Life would be great.

"Where Green Frogs Are Having Fun"

Three things.

One. It has come to my attention that the code for my template is not viewed the same by Internet Explorer as it is by Firefox. This means everyone out there who still uses IE (and I cannot think of a single reason you would) needs to switch so you can view my blog in all its proper glory.

Two. Just because you don't get what you want doesn't mean life isn't fair.

Three. This semester is already crammed full of homework, and I was planning my schedule out very carefully in my head tonight, making sure I would be able to fit all my work in, sadly conceding to the fact that I'll still have a lot to do on Saturday. This being the first week of the semester, I've come back to my old friends, but no movies are playing at the International Cinema and I don't really know anyone else, so I didn't have any big weekend plans. And then I made the mistake of walking home from the library. The Liz Factor strikes again. I think my red hat has magical powers too, if anyone should like to borrow it.

KRISTIN, WHERE ARE YOU?!

I have good ideas usually. Some pretty amazing ones sometimes, even. And I maintain that cardboard cars are really very fun. Some people should just not fall asleep while planning is going on and expect to like everything.

But then. But then, I get terrible ideas, ideas that should never, ever cross my mind. Samantha crossed my mind. Oh, yes. And Kristin is asleep and lets these ideas float in and out willy-nilly, free as the donut Rachael wanted.

On the other hand, my Bible as Literature professor thought Maryland was Maine today, so maybe this is just a post-trauma aftershock.

"The Little Things"

Frank came to church yesterday.

I haven't seen him since the summer I was eighteen. I stayed up an extra hour or two writing letters for people in my ward at Youth Conference. He was just investigating the church, but he was so impressed by the letter and by the sign the girls had made for the guys, he decided he wanted to belong. I went to his baptism, and shortly thereafter said goodbye to him as he left for some military high school. I thought about him a lot as I went off to college, but I had no way of contacting him. He left too suddenly.

Then I saw him and he told me about his summer in Budge Hall here at BYU and his plans to go on a mission next summer and how he's working with his mother, trying to get her to join too. I showed him around the building again and sat next to him in Gospel Doctrine and listened proudly as he read the verses he so eagerly volunteered to read, smiling at his well-marked Doctrine and Covenants.

Frank came to church yesterday. And it warmed my heart as I got on a plane and left the place that I love.

"So This is the New Year"

In the midst of flipping through channels to catch a countdown show that had good music (Ashlee Simpson is NOT good music) and pouring sparkling cider, I actually made some New Year's resolutions. I've always been good at keeping my resolutions, but for the past few years they've always been "drink chocolate milk" and "eat food." (Oh, chocolate milk, how I miss you. Come back to me with your delicious, chocolatey creaminess. None of this 1% non-Creamery nonsense. Ew, gross, I promise you I take one sip of that nastiness and leave it on the floor of Rachael's car to mold. I haven't been unfaithful to you, sweet sweet chocolate milk, I will love you forever and ever, I promise.) So, it's been easy. Not this year.

1. Eat food. This year it seems especially relevant, not silly as in years past. Operation: Gain Ten Pounds isn't going so hot, but it'll get better.

2. Be a better Plan Leader. I am the worst Plan Leader ever, but it won't stay that way.

3. Have more whimsy in my life. Why do throngs of people never chase me through the streets of London? This needs to happen.

4. Prepare for The Plan. It will be glorious, but it's mostly Top Secret, so no asking.

5. Actually work on peoples' blogs. As you can see, my own isn't so hot right now, but maybe I'll find the time, so as long as you don't change your password, good things will be happening.

And now it's off to the annual good luck dinner for New Year's day. I hope you all know enough to be eating pork and sauerkraut today, otherwise you're going to have terrible luck.