This is a stupid way to tell you, probably worse than texting, but I am in a stupid, lame mood.

As my title to eloquently puts it, I am in a stupid, lame mood. And the reason is the quintessential nineteen-year old anguish: My boyfriend broke up with me.
As soon as it happened I told Mike to take me to your house, but when I walked into your house ready to tell you the dismal news, I promptly slipped down the stairs, making me feel more stupid and lame and your house was so chalkful full of roommates, boyfriends and interviewers (of all nights to have some strange interviewer in your house...geeze, my luck really runs low these days) that I didn't feel like saying anything. I just did what I did best. Pretend to be asleep on the couch and then get up and leave. I called my house at eleven thirty, told Paul to wake up Dad because it was an emergency and then proceeded to yell at my dad for things he had nothing to with while he so patiently listened. I also wandered the south streets of Provo for half an hour.
I don't really know what went wrong, but I'm glad we are not trying to "make things work." I only cried for about .3 seconds, and then decided I didn't want to cry about a stupid boy. Ok. That was mean. But I feel like being mean. I feel like being a terrible person because then I would get why he broke up with me instead of his reason that he just feels like it's not working. Am I a hard person to work with?
I am also being torn right now because all I can think about is not how sad I am that I was just dumped, but how sad I am that Robert is not here. Even today as I received his weekly email and looked at the picture he sent me while cleaning up my desk I thought, "If Robert were here, I would be dating him." If he were here, this wouldn't have happened! I don't know if I miss Robert so much because I just got dumped or because I really really like him. Right now I don't think I am in a steady emotional state (this reminds me of the steady-state of GDP we learn about in economics. In order to get out of the steady state you need to inject technological growth into the equation. This now has nothing to do with how I am feeling, so I am going to get back on topic. Also, I am just throwing words on a page right now because I am sad and mad and determined to say something, so if you want to skip to the end of this post, that's ok). Tellingly, the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was play the CDs Robert made for me. Everything was so perfect with Robert, but then again I thought things were going great with Mike, so let's not fool ourselves.
I feel duped. I feel like I was the flavor of the month at Baskins and Robbins and then got switched out once Superman Birthday Cake was not so exciting of a flavor anymore. And I feel justified in feeling this way because Mike told me he just wasn't enjoying dating me as much as he used to. He used to "genuinely look forward" to seeing me at the end of the day, and now, just not so much. So I feel swindled and scammed and stupid that I was that girl that some guy "just dated for a month."
I'm going to make a list of things I don't like because I feel like it.
1) I don't like boys who date
2) I don't like couples at BYU
3) I don't like pregnant ladies waddling around on campus
4) I don't like babies in the library
5) I don't like missions and how they took away my best friends and will then proceed to take away all my girl friends within the next year.
6) I don't like eight 0'clock classes
7) I don't like how Vanesa turns our thermostat up to 80 degrees every morning, warms up her tea in the microwave and turns on the kitchen light, a combination that is guaranteed to wake up me somehow even if I wear earplugs and a sleeping mask and take my pajama pants off and wrap them around my head to further muffle the noise.
8) I don't like how my knee hurts
9) I don't like going to pointless emergency preparedness meetings
10) I don't like grading 45 econ midterms.
11) I don't like how Mike is in my History 200 class for the rest of the semester and how we are both history majors. Just leave me alone, gosh. (not you, him)
So there you have it: Carla in a dark, stormy mood. I can't even tell you why I'm not sad. I feel like I never will be. I'm just mad. Also, I feel like crap because I already wrote my Dear John to Robert. I'm not going to ask him if we can start writing again, because it's rude just to take him along the ride of my dating life, but I want to tell him how I feel about him. Maybe he feels like the way I do now and doesn't really care if my house gets egged tomorrow.
The other thing is, I'm not even tired and I have to wake up in less than six hours. Hmph.
Please don't tell Jordan. I'm not embarrassed, but I just want to tell her myself. Thanks.

Mariategui

I would like to add someone to our historical hunks gallery: Jose Carlos Mariategui (there should be accents here, but I don't want to change my keyboard to Spanish).

Behold the man considered to be the father of Latin American Marxism. He believed that Marxism in Latin America should develop through indigenous roots instead of through forcing a prescriptive European model of socialism on Latin American countries. He died at age 35, so the amount of influence he has had in Latin America is pretty amazing. I think he has rather striking features. He spent some time in Italy, which is cool. His travels merge my two favorite countries!

Historical Hunk, Second Edition

Behold: our current historical hunk. I will allow Wikipedia to say some things about him I don't care about:

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (English pronunciation: /ˈsɔrən ˈkɪərkəɡɑrd/ or /ˈkɪərkəɡɔr/; Danish: [ˈsɶːɐn ˈkiɐ̯ɡəɡɒːˀ] ( listen)) (5 May 1813 –11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. He was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.

And Roy Orbison to say the thing I do care about:

"Don't cut your hair, whatever you do

I need it to run my fingers through"

That's really the only part that applies.

Please think this is as funny as I think it is.

I received this email in my inbox with the subject line of Funny. I always start laughing when I see it out of the corner of my eye as I'm scrolling my inbox. It's just so funny. Imagine my mom animatedly telling you this story. Emphasis added.

I have to tell you what happened yesterday. Dad was helping with Blue and Gold event yesterday at church. He took strawberries as a side dish. He told us the food was going to be tacos. He told us to go there to have dinner. When Paul came back from selling cookie dough and stuff for his baseball fundraising at around 6:15 p.m. We got ready and Paul, Ben and I left and headed to the Stake Center. We got there and the gym had a Hawaiian theme decoration. It was amazing. It felt like we actually were in a nice tropical Island. We didn't see dad serving the food. We were thinking that dad got mixed up (it wasn't tacos like he told us) We went ahead and served ourselves Hawaiian delicious food. (My mom is super-excited about this Hawaiian theme) I said hi to bro. George and other people in line and talked about how nice they've decorated the gym. Paul got to talk to Daniel George. Then he went to the kitchen to see dad. In the meantime Ben and I got our food and went to a table. I noticed the kid beside me was eating strawberries but how strange, these had the green part on it (dad had taken off the green part to the strawberries he took). Any way, when we were chatting and eating our food Paul came and told us that dad was in our church building. The Blue and gold event was in our own ward and we had crash in in the George's ward. I was laughing so hard when Paul was saying "Mom, dad want us to go right away." Ben had finished his food and I had to take my plate with half of my food uneaten. On our way out I saw Bro. George and told him of our mistake. He just smiled and offer us dessert. Our ward theme was you're a hero and the decoration had balloons and blue and gold tablecloths. The food was tacos and I had one strawberry. It was good. I still laugh thinking of our confusion.
How are you doing? How is your sore knee these days?
Love,
Mom

Art for Pete's Sake

So, I don't know if you saw this month's Student Review, but I was reading it this afternoon and came across a fascinating interview with Jon McNaughton, the artist behind this painting,
which I first saw some time ago in the BYU bookstore basement and had to suppress an urge to vomit. Now, I'm all for the USA, and believe that the Constitution is wonderful and was, as they say, divinely inspired. But I do take issue with the extent to which Christ is here conflated with the U.S. government & founding fathers. I think that when Christ comes to earth, the message He delivers is going to be something other than the Constitution. 
The article in the Student Review centered on a more recent painting of McNaughton's, which looks like this,

and is equally maddening. Not because I worship Obama, though I definitely think this painting villainizes him unnecessarily. In fact, it took me reading more of McNaughton's comments below this picture where I found it online to realize why I really fundamentally hate these pictures: “I’m not trying to create an art style," he says. "I want to communicate my ideas.  Isn’t that the purpose of art?”

Is it? The very fact that he would ask that question kind of rubs me the wrong way; if he went through the entire BFA program at BYU (which he did, according to a the Student Review interview), shouldn't he have developed a slightly more  complicated conception of "the purpose of art"--if there even is a purpose? Oscar Wilde would certainly take issue with that. Actually, I'm sure there are almost as many ideas of the purpose of art as there are people, and it's not as if I am an expert. But to say it's purpose is to communicate his ideas--his political ideas, nonetheless--does seem much too facile.

I think the first criteria for art should be: Is it pretty? And I don't think Mr. McNaughton's work is very. After that, we can ask ourselves what the artist is trying to say or whatever, if he or she wants to say something. And if conveying a message is your goal, artist, at least don't insult your viewers by making the work's meaning so sickeningly obvious. 

“I hope my work will create conversation and reach people on a deeper level,” McNaughton says on his website. “I like to use metaphor and multiple levels of meaning to reach my viewer. If it makes them think and feel, then it is successful.” Wow--so deep!--I wonder what you could be trying to say by depicting Obama with his foot on the Constitution while Roosevelt and Clinton, standing at his left, clap in the background? These are metaphors that a fourth-grader could interpret upon his or her introduction to figurative language. 

So I may not be able to articulate exactly what constitutes good art, but I'm pretty sure that this stuff is bad.

Happy Valentines Day

I was feeling really good about Valentines Day until just barely. Emily received her valentine from Jeff and I read it aloud at her behest and was so genuinely thrilled for her love; I made the sweetest cutest valentines for my roommates; I was so excited to participate in some alternative Valentine's traditions of my own. Because I truly do believe that this is a good occasion to express love for everyone in my life that I love. But about one hour ago, I just got inconsolably sad, and I was not expecting that. And I want someone to, like, comfort me and care about me and  ask me how I'm feeling, but I don't think that I would tell them, anyway. I wanted to write this in my journal, but I also wanted to tell another person, so this is kind of a happy medium. (Warning: Please never post this blog address on your Facebook profile or resume or anything. Don't let anyone read it. If you don't even read it anymore, that is fine; I would like only to maintain the illusion of sharing my deep, pathetic feelings with someone other than me.)
So that is what brings me here. I would like to share my uncharacteristically non-uplifting or educational sentiments. I am just upset, and would like to rant about Valentine's Day of all things, which I HATE because I LOVE Valentine's day and HATE when people get angry about it and bitterly proclaim "Single Awareness Day." But then, perhaps the reason I hate that attitude in others is that I think only I actually have a right to be upset. The only thing more pathetic than me right now is me in twenty years when I am forty years old, still unkissed and unloved. I suppose you could say that, this evening, every romantic frustration I've felt in my entire life has been compacted into one miserable funk hanging around me. Do you want to know something completely ridiculous? I just googled "how to seduce your co-worker." It is so bad, Carla; save me from myself.
So that's one thing factoring into my anger: my coworker, even though I might say things are going sort of well on that front; I could write out a list for you of every interaction between us that made me giddy and convinced me he's in love with me, but that would distract from the melancholy mood of this post. And that, too, is beside the point. I have thought long and hard about this budding relationship, and concluded that I need this kid to love me for a few reasons. Obviously, I'd like to be convinced that I can make him love me. Also, if I can do it, it will be the ultimate victory because I will have done it 100% on the merit of my own charm. Developing a relationship in a foodservice atmosphere is comparable to doing physics problems that occur in a vacuum: no external forces, like existing mutual friends or my irresistibly luscious hair, are going to affect us. All we have to go on is how we look in our matching uniforms and green hats and how we react in stressful pizza-related situations. But on the other hand, it makes it one hundred times less likely that either of us will ever be able to ask the other to meet outside the pizza kitchen.
And there is another big problem, focused rather on my willingness to discuss this whole enterprise. I can't talk about it to anyone, because when it doesn't go anywhere, I can't let them know that I failed. Recall how I didn't really tell anyone about my first workplace love until I found out he was married? It was pretty strategic, though I didn't realize at the time. I had discovered that success was definitely impossible, but it wasn't my fault, so I could proclaim my unrequited love to the world and all was still well. Similarly, I want so badly to tell everyone every little detail of my discussions with current love interest, but, being the considerate friend I am, I prefer to protect everyone's fragile emotional states. I wouldn't want to dash all of your hopes to pieces.
Now, I'm shifting to examine my despair from a slightly different angle. I suppose you could say this is what motivated me to attempt the seduction in the first place. I know that everyone thinks I am super cool and everything; Caleb and my mom and all my Sunday School teachers and friends are simply at a loss to explain how I have never had a boyfriend, because I'm just so wonderful, right? And for the last two-ish years, that has made me feel sufficiently good about myself, I think. Recently, though, I decided that I have to stop being satisfied with everyone else being perplexed by me and actually show them some sort of answer. Me as a walking contradiction is kind of fun (or at least more fun than having everyone think, "Oh, yeah, she's pretty boring and awkward. No wonder boys don't care for her"), but I have---to---get---past---it----
I feel like Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility, of whom Mr. Willoughby says, "He's the kind of man everyone speaks well of, but no one remembers to talk to."
Okay, just tell me when to stop. Really. I might be able to kvetch about this for pages. I'm going to conclude with this song that feels like a really good Valentine's song right now, for some reason.

Finally, I would like to say that I will appreciate any nice, comforting comments you would like to leave on this post, but ultimately the only thing that will satisfy me right now is a whole slew of boys from my past appearing on my doorstep to say that they all loved me for years and never told me. I would accept letters from them, even.

Guess who...

ELVIS. He's a BABY. 

So precious.

So pretty.

I finally figured it out.

I will recall to your memory our age-old question of why people always think about sex and how baffling it is that it pervades every form of media, communication and thought. I mean, why don't people think about ice cream that much? Why can you expect every joke that someone snickers at (is sniggers a word. i tried to type it, but spellcheck replaced it with snickers, which reminds me of the candy bar, which gets me thinking that that is a really weird name for a candy bar) to be about sex? My Very Short Introduction to History book by John H. Arnold finally shed some light on the matter.

First of all, as a basis, in this short little book one of the main points made is that a historian, or anyone for that matter, can never perfectly capture history because it is impossible for someone in the present to understand all the subtle nuances of the past and even then, each individual has unique experiences which makes it hard to piece individual accounts into a cohesive snapshot of "history" in that moment/year/decade, etc.... Point is: the human experience is really diverse. So what do we have in common? Three main things:

1) Birth. We were all born

2) Death. We all die

3) Sex. We are all products of sex and most of us will have sex in our lifetime.

So that's why it pervades everything! It is one of the few things that everyone knows about. People from all cultures know about it. People from different social classes all know about it. Jocks on the football team and Dungeon and Dragon geeks all know about it. And universally it gets most people pretty excited, so it has a strong emotive factor.

Finally. One baffling question of life answered. Now that I look back, I wonder why it was so puzzling.

Carla, where are you?

This is a magical song.