Nancy's Musings

I think my main criticism of other people's complaining comes down to the words. People are too generally superlative and hyperbolic in their emotionality. I, too, make this mistake, and wish I were more able to think logically when I am distressed. The most distressing things (to me) to hear others complain about are their weight, their employment, or their dating life. I can beat most people I meet for misery in all three categories, and yet I have to listen to them and wonder about what they must think of me. Do we really think that our misfortunes are the worst, or do we only talk as if they were? Do we honestly believe that our situation is to the point where no one who has ever been here before has come out of them? I have been in an ongoing argument with several people, but mainly my father, about the pointlessness of hope, but I think what I really need to embrace the concept is an alternate definition. I don't think hope, in the common sense, is anything more than...

My little sister and all her adoring fans voted me "Most Unique" in high school. Yearbook staff took my picture as I held a plastic lollipop and thought how much more unique the girl who had won "Most Artistic" was. My older brother was told that he had "divergent thinking." That's just a flattering way of saying that he has a unique perspective. He wasn't an intellectual sheep. Daniel knows that he's smart. No one every said that about me. I don't think anyone ever accused me of thinking at all. I just was. My existence was divergent, but not my intellect. My first-grade teacher asked me and a fellow classmate named Michael to come to the front of the class and solve a problem. I could feel it coming together inside my head as I stared at the board, but I took too long, and she gave us the answer. She took away an opportunity for success and instead gave me decades of insecurity. Was I smart or stupid? Pretty or Ugly seemed irrelev...

I don't know what a percolator does, specifically. I'm not a coffee drinker. I do enjoy the occasional mug of well-sweetened herbal tea, but one hardly needs an entire kitchen apparatus for the simple operation of boiling water. Still, by observing general usage, I have decided that some decisions come easily, some decisions come with focus and determination, and some decisions have to be set aside, not watched, and almost forgotten before they can be made. Decisions that come easily include: Babylon5 or Star Trek, which Doctor, what grade to give this paper, what color to wear to Prom, which earrings go best, and how long do you wait around for a boy to call. Decisions that require determination include: which leftovers for dinner, laundry or sleep, PC or PDA, which girl to ask out this weekend, whether a deadline should be pushed back, and whether a life lived in one's parents' basement is worth living through to its conclusion. Decisions that must simmer on a...

I started ANOTHER blog. It's pink. Ew, I know, but it's kind of a theme. It's called "Josephina's Northern Pig" and it's a retelling of a classic fairy tale that's been in my head since I was a small child. The original was published under the title "The Pig from the North" I think, in one of Andrew Lang's Fairy books (Red?). I reset the story in the late 1700's England, and gave the characters names, rather than just titles (Youngest Princess, Pig, King, etc). I'll be publishing it a piece at a time. Neither of the two of you who follow this blog will likely be interested in a fairy tale, but I just thought I'd let you know, in case you get really bored one day and could use something random to read. All of the fairy books are available in .pdf format at the Gutenberg Project, if you are impatient for the end of the story. Just don't let your co-workers catch you at it. You'd never live it down. If you're feeling ...

I dumped my imaginary boyfriend when I turned sixteen so I might try some real ones. They've all been spent now, and find myself regretting him more than any of them. I stopped writing to my imaginary penpal when I began to feel that God might be saddened that I would choose to make someone up rather than speak my worries to Him. I sit at this laptop in an old roommate's scrubs, watching a BBC Victorian Drama. I don't want to be the clever heroine. I don't want to be loved by the brooding, but handsome hero. I don't want to jump into the roiling fantasy adventure I returned to the library this morning at sunrise. I never want to meet anyone who smells that bad. I have inevitably found my reality preferable to the cynical realism my imagination imbues other people's fantasies. I had a third imaginary friend, and we used to speak. He was something, and sometime, between boyfriend and penpal. We would hold long conversations. I would supply his lines, speaking as i...

My little brother says he doesn't ever want to get married because he doesn't want to ruin his life. This is the same brother who almost didn't graduate High School, dropped out of Dixie college, and shouldn't legally be trusted with a car or a cell phone. Normally I would ignore his idiocy, but something else has occurred which makes me wish to articulate my perspective. I received a phonecall from a mission companion whose adoration of her district leader was thwarted (perhaps too strongly) by our mission president. The former district leader had contacted her recently (both are now married; he lives in Australia and she in Phoenix) and they had both expressed their regret that neither had been allowed to honestly express their blossoming affections. She then went on to tell me how much she truly loves her husband but. . . Everything after that conjunction was bad news. So her husband doesn't buy her pearls. So his children are scary-expensive. So my parents would...

Generally, the reading public calls any book with unrealistic or formulaic plots "escapist" fiction, but I use the term to mean fiction in which the character leaves our mundane reality for one in which other laws besides physics apply. Five of the most popular authors along this vein are Stephen Donaldson, Alan Dean Foster, Jack L. Chalker, Piers Anthony, and R.A. Salvatore. Stephen Donaldson takes my breath away with his poetic descriptions and deeply human characters. He published an anthology of his own favorite short stories (called Strange Dreams , and a MUST READ for anyone interested), several of which made me laugh, cry, or both. His great escapist character was Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, a leper from our world and time who finds that the loam of the other world to which he travels will temporarily cure him. Most know Alan Dean Foster as an unbelievably prolific author of humorous science fiction. He also published a series (in the seventies?) called Spellsinger...