Things I Love

Mum and Dad.
Levi.
Alexa.
Sam.
Jacob.
Kaitlyn.
Ezra.
Eden.
My family all over the world.
Music, singing is so much fun. But probably most especially piano music. I love it. I love everything about it.
Sports, especially gymnastics, basketball, baseball, and hockey. But there are so many others!
Hanging out with my roommies.
Hanging out with my friends.
Hide and go seek in the dark.
Maine, especially MDI, particularly during summer, fall, and winter - not so much during mud.
The ocean, rivers, streams, brooks, lakes, ponds, etc.
Snow, especially when I can play in it, or if there are soft and silent woods I can walk around through after they've been covered in snow.
Pounding rain when I'm inside, and can hear it and see it pounding through the window in the living room, as I drink something warm. (Watching my roommates venture out into it one-by-one for meetings and classes, when I don't have any, is just an added perk.)
Animals. Playing with them. Acting as one. What?! Me?!
The sky. It's a pretty amazing creation. The moon. The sun. Clouds.
Thunderstorms.
Books. There are some really amazing ideas out there, and so many of them are written down just for us to read.
Pictures.
Cookies. They're my weakness, and that's okay with me.
Certain T.V. shows: Seinfeld and The Office, and House.
The human body - another baffling creation. I mean, I think about it, and then I have to stop, 'cause my head starts hurting. It's awful. It's crazy.

Insomnia

I hate it when I can't sleep. My sleeping patterns have been so off lately, just 'cause of travel, not having any school, and things like that. I didn't nod off until almost 5! (Then I slept through my alarm clock and thus through Sacrament meeting... I had to go to another one later. It was lame.) Anyway, I did a couple things to bide my time. First, I read out of my book, The Long Walk, The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, by Slavomir Rawicz. It's excellent. I read a really good quote about humor. Here it is:

"The men I most admired were the jokers. They saved us often in our blackest moments. There were maybe four or five of them in our lot. They would joke about anything. Their quips were frequently macabre ... They were irrepressible. Nothing stopped them. I bless their memory for the gusty belly laughs they gave us..."

Later, at about 4, when it was quite clear that I wouldn't be falling asleep at any reasonable time, I pulled out my little green book I keep poems in. I jotted down my frustration:

Can't Sleep

Darkness fills the world outside,
Sharing the space with Silence.
In the walls of my home is where I hide
Writing down a late-night cadence.

Cool air sneaks past my drawn blinds
Calming my too-hot bedroom.
My Spirit finds peace, but not my Mind;
Thoughts do thrive in quiet gloom.

I wish only for a restful sleep,
Without another thought-fit,
Into which I can fall deep
Before the morning light hits.

Boring Books

In response to Lindsey's latest post, asking the question whether or not there are certain books I feel pressure to enjoy because they are considered "classics" or because they are "best-sellers" but simply can't find it in myself to read:

I, too, find it difficult to get into A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I started it, got a couple of chapters in, and just couldn't keep it going. It's so boring - at least in the beginning it is, and that's the part that needs to capture you. I figured if it started out this boring, it simply didn't deserve all the hype it received, and set it aside, never to pick it up again.

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse. I started it in the fifth grade. Having read and liked some of Hesse's previous writings, and this particular book being on the recommended reading list for my grade - it was an award-winning book - I totally expected to enjoy it thoroughly. Ya know, I give books a pretty good run before I'll set them down. (I also have a rule that if I'm at least three-quarters of my way through the book, it has to turn pretty far down hill for me to not finish it.) I was probably a good third of my way through, when it just became too dry for me to finish. It was dusty alright, but nothing good was coming from it. I have since thought that perhaps I would pick it back up, but every time I see it in a library, I just find myself not attracted in the least sense of the word.

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I attribute this mainly to my lack of understanding. I started this book I think my freshman year of high school - it might have been 8th grade - and that's a pretty young age for anyone, even a well-read person like myself, to be delving into the dark and obviously troubled mind of Dostoevsky. If there's one thing I know about Eastern Europeans, it's that they don't do anything without a severe amount of passion; everything from their drinking to their writing is done with every fiber of their being. (The one excuse may be made for a few certain co-workers of mine, who felt that work required no passion, and therefore they got minimal hours.) I felt bad for setting this book down, but it was just too much for me. Maybe I'll give it another try - I'll probably have to for school some time soon anyway. My critiquing will be more accurate then.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Okay, these books are honestly, amazing. The highly detailed imagination that went into creating the world of Middle Earth, the creatures within it, and the languages that were involved is, in a word, baffling. They even include my all-time favorite, most-beloved character in all of literature, aside from Christ, Samwise Gamgee. But, unless you are big into literature, particularly of that time, or are interested in analyzing writing styles of early-1900's authors (call me weird, I like that stuff), than really I don't see any reason for you to read these books. Tolkien, as excellent a writer as he is, does tend to draw things out a little too long. This makes certain chapters long and dry. And although I don't normally suggest movies in place of books, I make this the exception. Peter Jackson followed the books very carefully, and quite frankly, the story is easier to watch than to read. You get the same feeling for the characters as you do from the books (the casting job was phenomenal), and the message, albeit not intended by Tolkien, is still there.

An Eden Moment

The following takes place between the hours of 2 am and 4 am on a January morning in Saipan:

Kaitlyn: "Mal, can I sleep with you? I think Eden wet the bed."
Mal: "Yeah, sure. Did you wake her up?"
Kaitlyn: "Yeah, Alexa's helping her." Climbs into bed with me.

A few minutes later...

Eden: "Mallory, can I sleep with you guys?"
Mal: "Are you cleaned up?"
Eden: "Yes."
Mal: "Of course."

About an hour goes by with all of us girls on a full-size air mattress in the family room, keeping Alexa awake all night due to our incescent noise-making. Finally, possibly the funniest part of the whole night happened after Eden had drooled a little from laughing too hard.

Mal: "Eden, are you licking me again?" ("Again" refers to an earlier time that night when Eden thought it was hillariously funny that she was licking my shoulder. I promtly put her on the other side of Kaitlyn, but somehow she ended up back beside me.)
Eden: "No."
Mal: "Oh, okay. Good."
Eden: Entirely serious. "I am wiping the rest of my spit on you though." As if that is any better. After she said it, it hit all of us at once just how funny it was, and we cracked up into yet another peal of laughter.

What I Forgot Over the Winter

I was walking down the sidewalk today on my way to the guy's apartment, without a coat on. It's not only nice out now, but warm. It's beautiful. Probably somewhere in the 50's range or higher. All of a sudden, it hit me that I really didn't know what to do with my hands. Normally I would have them stuffed as deeply as possible into my coat pockets, but what now? I just let them hang by my sides for a second, but decided that it felt ape-like. So, I slipped my hand into my back pockets, but that felt more like I should be standing still, rather than walking down the street. This might have worked had I been walking and talking with someone. I folded my arms across my chest, but decided that it looked too much like I was angry over something, when really I was having a perfect day - it was nice out, I had just finished my last final, and was on my way to hang out with the guys; not much to be angry over.

Alas, I had already reached Arcadia Apartments before I had figured out what exactly to do with my awkward appendages.