Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!

Gold, tinsel, blue lights, multi-colored lights, bells, bulbs, balls, bows, wrapping paper, gifts, toys, candy, chocolate, candy canes, snow, ribbons, elves, stockings, silver, cookies, carols, muppets, ghosts, reindeer, sleighs, hot chocolate, nutcrackers, santas, chimneys, trees, stars, home alone, grinch, scrooge, boots, scarves, red, green, ornaments, Bernard, trains, turkey, pixies, presents, nuts, popcorn, cold, shopping, money, cards, pictures, mickey, egg nog, Maureen O'Hara, 34th street, hats, muffs, family, games, shovels, cheese, candles, oranges, snowmen, carrots, coal, mittens, fun, garland, wreath, mistletoe . . . .

. . . . a star, a manger, a child is born.

Confines

There are days when the world seems to slough off me, when responsibility and life become part of the background, unimportant and seemingly forgettable, if only I could focus on words on the edge of release. It is on these days when I want nothing more than to write until I am drained of all that is inside of me, till pages are splattered with my thoughts and a deepening feel of me. Yet my sense of duty crowds in, work a prior claim on my time, an obligation that overrides any sense of creativity bubbling to escape the confines of my cubicle.

It is maddening to sit at a computer all day, wanting to write, but unable to because I have to type work things, I have to type all day, but none of it is what I want to be writing, none of the work I do is for me. My inspiration dries up as I work, the moments slipping through my grasp to be lost amidst the endless facts and instructions I give my offices, my dreams garbling into unintelligible wisps of ideas drifting out of reach.

Undisclosed Desires

"I want to reconcile the violence in your heart
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask,
I want to exorcise the demons from your past,
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart"

Great lyrics by Muse

Chopsticks and Skittles

FHE on the whole hasn't been fun so far this year. Yet I still go, persistently hopeful that one of these times I will enjoy myself. This past Monday started out promising: an object lesson to start out the evening. Each person was handed one chopstick and then told to pick up a skittle from a bowl using only that chopstick. As I approached the bowl, everyone else already there and struggling, I snapped my chopstick in half and used that to pick up a skittle. Everyone was impressed, except the "teacher," who thought I cheated. I thought I was awesome.

We settled down for the lesson, which turned out to be 40 minutes long and about the Book of Mormon as another testament of Christ. We watched two videos, had an emotional testimony from the teacher who then asked us all to bear our testimony of the BOM. I'm sorry, did I walk through the door into a fireside? Ward prayer? Relief Society? No, this is FHE? Oh, good, 'cause I wasn't sure I was in the right place. There were some good things about the lesson, but it was long and not what I would call an appropriate lesson for FHE, not for what the purpose of FHE is. But I endured waiting to see how the activity would turn out. Lesson ended at 8 pm, and oh yeah, by the by there isn't an activity tonight. -Sigh- Why do I still go?

Halloween

Queen Bavmorda!

Pizazz!

Finally I found a template that's more lively and colorful. Sadly all the templates I liked were too wide to show everything, even this one cuts off most of the blue, but it still works. Now I have more options and can switch things around whenever I want. But for now the vomiting frog has new colors. Woot woot.

Distractions

Maybe I'm never satisfied. I sit down to write, either an email or a blog post or to work on my novel or short story, and I get so distracted. Even now, I paused to watch tv. Then I have to shake my focus back to the task at hand. I'll stare at the screen, fingers pressed to the keyboard, but my mind will be blank. At times it is too silent around me, a distracting silence, so I turn on the tv or the radio as background noise. Sometimes I turn on both at the same time so there is noise to block out the world. Then my mind and fingers spiral into a whirlwind.

Today is a silent day. I need the silence to write because my day was so blah that I want things to distract me, to fill my day with something instead of nothing. And work is close to nothing when it is days like today. With my blah day when the tv is on, I want to watch and not write. The problem is my roommate has guests over and they are loud. I need a studio that is sound proof, full of light, full of either sound or silence depending on the day. That's not possible, though, when I'm living in student housing.