Nancy's Musings

I know so very little about feminism and feminist movements, but I have noticed social trends in Relief Society. We women gather and discuss ourselves, and the fact that we are not allowed to hold or exercise the Priesthood like the men. The feminists among us have several reactions to choose from - they can freak out and apostatize, or they can decide that they're better than men anyway and don't need it. They can petition the church to change its policy and/or doctrine. They can repress and subordinate themselves. In our women's meeting on Sunday we discussed the Priesthood, and several women (everyone who spoke up, actually) seemed determined to assert the power of womanhood, rather than discuss the actual topic. I support this discussion only theoretically; in practice, it sounded wrong. Only a fool would pretend that women don't have power or influence on every level of society, overtly and covertly. Why did these women feel the need to vocalize it? One woman p...

I pondered briefly as I tried to sleep last night that although I rail about stupidity, and the frustrating people I meet who don't seem to use what little intelligence they may have, my true attraction factor - the thing about people I notice most quickly and am most attracted to - is not intelligence, but rather the ability to think for oneself, even if said thinking isn't of the highest caliber. I have lived among the academe. I have conversed with genius. I have argued with everyone, and the people about whom I find myself spouting encomium are not always those with a spark of genius, but those with a spark of weird. I like people who think differently, even if they don't think well. Truly, I prefer a mixture of both, but if I had to choose between a genius conformist and an eccentric imbecile, I believe I'd choose the imbecile. At least the thoughts expressed would be individual. Little good conversation has come from the Polonii of the world who spout platitud...

They talk about square pegs and round holes. They talk about oddballs and eccentrics. They ogle, patronize, and ostracize. That's them. What about us?  " There must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said no. Somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time ," said Guildenstern reincarnated. Next time, eh? There's the rub. But Guildenstern says what I mean. Somewhere in my developmental years I must have decided, I must have moved in this direction. Sometime I must have been young enough to say, "Life would be easier if I could just pretend to be like them." If I'm a square peg trying to fit board after board of round holes, who carved me? I'm inclined to take responsibility for my own character, which means that when someone told me to be creative, to make myself be what I wanted to be, they didn't tell me the whole story. Someone somewhere forgot to tell me that even if I make myself correctly, if I do it ...

In "Measure for Measure," Shakespeare, as he did with Polonius, put profound words in the mouth of a fool. Lucio begs the soon-to-be-nun Isabella to try to save her brother from beheading. He must convince her, it seems sometimes, simply to open her mouth in behalf of a sinner. Seen from another perspective, he asks her to leave her home, her safety, and her vows, essentially to betray herself and help her brother escape punishment for something she truly believes is wrong. Shakespeare makes this situation, as many others, too complex for simple answers. Lucio, merely another complexity, utters the words: "Our doubts are traitors and makes [sic] us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt." The thought is simplicity amid complexity. Our doubts are traitors; they work against the whole, against the greater good of the person. We waffle briefly, and lose time. Doubts undermine our honorable purposes. We never leave the ground when we could be flying. T...

While shelving a row or so of fiction, I discovered a couple who had started nesting in the corner near the graphic novels. They had set up a computer with two monitors, had a huge bag and ripped and crumpled paper scattered everywhere. I informed them in a somewhat disbelieving tone that they really needed to find a desk or a table. People sit back there all the time to read where it's quiet, and that doesn't really bother  me as long as they don't get in the way of my shelving, but when they're starting to camp out like it's their bedroom clear in the back where I can't keep an eye out, it's time to start with the shooing motions, meine meinung nach. I just spoke with an ancient gentleman with incredibly hairy ears and an eye-patch, who wanted books about tractors. All of our books about tractors are in the children's section, according to a cursory subject search. I wish I knew another word for them, but neither of us could figure one out. It's ...

Crossing aisles, I glanced up from my armful of spine labels to see a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. He was missing most of his right leg, but he grinned at me, laughed, maybe, as I smiled back an apology, said "excuse me" and passed by to continue shelving. When I was back at my desk I wondered in utter confusion how he would ever reach anything on the top shelves. I felt a need to offer help, but a reluctance to diminish his independence. I flashed back bemusedly to the extensor arm I played with at Elizabeth's, and how much fun I had had pulling books off her shelf from across the room and then putting them back. He disappeared before I could make any more stupid gaffes. Ten minutes before closing I was making a circuit around the outside wall to count patrons. In the very back, the section on WWII, I found a homeless-looking man (one of many who use the library daily) sitting cross-legged on the floor amid seven or eight over-sized books. He must have heard my f...

People, myself included, seem to be very down on me lately, and I'm sure they've every right to be that way. I'm a bit incoherent at the moment. I haven't said or typed one right thing in several weeks. I'm terse, offensive, ugly, sarcastic, and anxious beyond all hope of sanity. My mother says I make it difficult to be loved. My dad says I'm  illogical (which isn't actually true - I'm just a little obscure), Michael simply won't give me the time of day, and Stephen says we need an intervention. Elizabeth says I have bad taste, Miriam says "why can't you just be nice to people?" (with perfect timing, I might add), my boss wants to fire me, and you really don't want to know what my students say about me. It doesn't help that I think they're probably all totally right. Lest anyone forget, though, I'm wonderful. I'm sorry I'm not good at letting everybody know, but it's totally true. Not only am I a brilliant ...