My big news

Well, I don't think many of you know yet, but I figured it's high time I told everyone: I'm going on a mission! I enter the MTC in two days, this Wednesday, October 18. I'm going to Fresno California, English speaking. I am so dang pumped to make this change in my life right now. I'm gonna miss everyone so much, tho! Please write, if you feel so inclined and I'll do all I can to write back. Also, in the next 18 months I'm sure a good few of you will get married and/or have babies, and I sure would love to get the announcements and see the pictures of all those. Best of luck in all, you wonderful people who have made me who I am. I love you.
Christie Winder

Oct 18 - (roughly) Nov. 8
Sister Christine M. Winder
California Fresno Mission
Provo MTC
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo UT 84604

Nov. 8 (roughly) - sometime in April 08 (unfortunately I'm only supposed to e mail family, so friends'll have to stick to snail mail-sorry!)
Sister Christine M. Winder
California Fresno Mission
1814 N. Echo Ave.
Fresno CA 93704

Recycled Pop Culture

Ah, Spin Magazine, what will you come up with next?

Good Heckles
"Play something the drummer knows!"
"Less guitar in the monitor!"
"Play that song from the iPod commercial!"
"Play your hit--again!"
"Yo, dog, that was on! What do you think, Paula?"

Reasons Michael Jackson is Bad, according to his song "Bad"
Your butt is his.
He's gonna hurt your mind.
He knows your game and what you're about.
If you don't like what he's sayin, you can slap his face.
The whole world has to answer him right now.
He's smooth.
Woo! Woo! Woo!

and if you stuck around long enough, the best one:
Album Titles More Compelling Than the Actual Album
45 or 46 Song That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records - NOFX
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone - The Walkmen
Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records - Chumbawumba (ha! remember them?)
My Pain and Sadness Is More Sad and Painful Than Yours - mclusky
This Conversation Is Ending Starting Right Now - Knapsack
Hairway to Steven - Butthole Surfers
Hitler Bad, Vandals Good - the Vandals

and here's my own personal compelling album title:
The Life Less-Examined: Rehashing Spin Magazine on My Blog.
The End.

First-class Fool, me

This is my friend Stephanie Woolston. She's an awesome friend, so I felt like blogging about her tonight. See, I was supposed to drive down to Provo and see a local band's show with her tonight. Once again, I let her down and backed out. If it was an occasional thing, I wouldn't feel so bad, but it seems like every time Stephanie wants me to do something with her I stand her up. The excuse is usually a lame one. (Tonight I feel far too tired to drive down to Provo, which admittedly is lame, especially since I did want to hang out with Steph.) I felt like such an IDIOT when I got off the phone with her. Now, if I were her, I think I prolly would have dropped a friend like me long ago. But she was so sweet and nice about it still, and that is an incredible relief. So, hurrah for friends like Stephanie.

Anecdotal

Four weeks ago tomorrow was my last day working at Heritage School, a residential treatment center for teenagers with psychiatric diagnoses. Disciplining unruly teens is sort of a high anxiety job, and so even though I don't miss it that much, there are aspects that I remember fondly. The best moments were when the clients made me laugh. Following are a few:
"Are you into all that God stuff?" -K when she saw my Draw Near Unto God book.
"All I ever wanted was a big piece!" -C playing Tetris.
"Why would you want to learn things? Learning's for learners." -D on why she didn't want to go to school.
"Hey guys, look. There's an old man walking by outside." -M, self-explanatory.
"Hey, she heard it plop." -C arguing about whether J was using the bathroom or not.
"I feel like Jesus." -R when she wore her hair wavy.
"Do you ever look at a horse and just get really, really hungry?" -A at lunch.
"You're medium cool." -M to J when she asked if he liked her.
"It smells like buttered popcorn." -R when she farted.
"I'm so pissed that they put me in anger management!" -S upon finding out which support group she was in.
"Your mom's a Jesus fish." -R.
"Does sugar have calories?" -C at lunch.
"You know what would be really funny? If I got the same shirt as a guy here, and then we wore the same pants, too, so we were wearing the same shirt and the same pants at the same time." -S, after some deep contemplation.
"You can't just ask a black woman for her cell phone number!" -A.
"My parents were going to name me Diana, but then I was born on St. Patrick's Day so they named me S." -S on origins of her name.

Ah, the folly of youth! ;)

Big Sandy, Montana

I woke up with a June Bug chilling in my bed with me this morning.

We Only Come Out At Nite

I guess I'm an insomniac again tonite. I must have gotten five drinks of water and gone to the bathroom ten times before I finally decided to just be up at 4 in the morning. I'm currently waiting for the couch to dry so that I can at least just watch a movie. I literally can't turn my brain off. The little mundane lists of things to be done just won't leave me alone. And on top of that, I've got about ten songs running thru my mind. Luckily I'll see my mom tomorrow and she'll be a dear and hook me up with some of her sleeping pills so that I won't find myself in this same situation 24 hours from now. I can tell my body's tired--I keep yawning and having to stretch my muscles, but my head won't let it sleep. It's actually kind of ironic for me to be complaining about this. This last year of my life has been the first year in about ten that I haven't preferred the night time. I used to think that I would just live my life that way. Who put all the morning people in charge anyway, right? tee hee. I think I just saw a spider in the shadow out of the corner of my eye.

The Sports Question

I wish I could say my lack of confidence were reason enough to not play sports with boys. It's the reason I have for not doing it tonite, and I know it's the biggest cop out ever. I've never been such an athletic person, although I do enjoy sports, whenever on occasion I can play them with only all girls. It matters a lot less when you make a big fumble because everyone else is doing it too. (unless maybe you're playing with Athelia.) The unfortunate truth is that boys DO judge a girl by how she plays, and that's just not a chance I felt willing to take this evening. (except I'll most likely still be judged for chickening out.) See, I know that boys have a tendency to get competitive and it matters a lot more to them when you mess it up for the whole team. You see that fallen look on their face, sometimes here some choice words. Two summers ago, I was basically forced to play a co-ed basketball game. My team positioned me under the hoop where they could toss me the ball every chance they got and I could make an easy lay up. Supposedly. It was about the twentieth try that it finally went in. I saw my supervisor become frustrated beyond warrant, and I lost most respect that I had for him that day. Sports have a tendency to bring out a nasty side of people. Jeff had a theory that every girl should go see her boyfriend participate in a sporting event sometime when he doesn't know she's there. How could such a thing change the world, I wonder? Anyway, the point I was originally getting at is how much my self-consciousness controls my life, and that's just sad. Roommate Kathryn say, "You can do anything with confidence." Probably need to take that a little more to heart.

hoobastinks

Do you know how to say Hoobastank in five more countries? I do.
1. Hoobastonk - The Netherlands
2. Hooba ha puzzato - Italy
3. Hooba a pue - France
4. Hoobatresandou - Brazil
5. Hoobapesto - Mexico
And while we're on the topic--they got pretty sucky, don't ya think? That new song of theirs sounds so dang . . . watered down.

Boring.

I wish I had something interesting to blog about, except I don't really. How bout some news, then? Lindsay and James have finally announced their wedding on June 8. My brother is serving a mission in the Philippines (one L or two?) and he has some sort of infection in his testicles. No good. My other brother has impregnated his girlfriend for the second time. He's not too happy about it, but what did he expect? I won't mind having another baby around, that's for sure. My 2 bands are both gonna be in concert again in April, but who knows if I'll go, cuz no one will ever go with me. The last three of my grad school applications are going in this week, and that's about the most exciting thing to happen to me in the last year, being a repented VL and all now. My friend I was gonna move to Alaska with for the summer is now getting married so I may be stuck in Provo for another summer. I get to start a new scent of perfume this week (just in time for Valentines, I guess). Oh, and I still hate vegetables, but they're good for you, so someone should cook them for dinner group on Tuesday and/or Thursday this week.

Raise your hand if Cosmo gives you heebie jeebies

I went to the basketball game last Wednesday. I was sitting on the front row, meaning I had the luxury of sitting through the whole game and not having to stand up. Part way thru the first half, I turn and there's Cosmo hovering right over me, prodding me to stand up, I guess cuz everyone else was, and apparently you're not a very good fan if you don't. I've never been a Cosmo fan. I think he's weird looking. So he kept touching me and grabbing me to stand up. I finally swatted him and told him to leave me alone and so he did. But during the second half he was back for more. This time he came climbing up the rails right in front of me, tho, so I was more psychologically prepared. Also I was able to cower behind Tim, altho he wasn't much help. In short, I felt officially molested by Cosmo the freakish cougar. I've seen him several times since then and all I can do is scowl and mutter at my new arch enemy.

Eulogy to a Kiss

Today I receive my "repented VLs," a term coined by Stacie meaning that it's been one solid year since I've kissed anyone. She was pretty proud of herself when she got hers. I remember feeling pretty confident that I would never get mine. In fact, in my 5 and a half years of kissing, I've never really even come that close before this, and now I'm not pleased with the situation at all. There have been opportunities to kiss people throughout this last year, believe you me, but they just haven't been right enough, meaning primarily that these boys had not fulfilled my kissing criteria. My kissing criteria is a boundary that I enforced on myself about two and a half years ago when I realized that the older I become, the easier it is to just go kiss some guy just because. Basically, it's to prevent myself from becoming a slut. It seems that my beloved criteria has now perhaps pushed me to the other extreme and made me a nun. I will kiss someone again someday, I think.
But you know what really sickens me? When a person can't even remember the names of all the people they've kissed. I make it a point to remember the FULL name. I could even recite them to you right now, if you like. My kissing criteria has also pretty effectively prevented me from ever becoming someone else's nameless kiss. I suppose maybe that's a small price to pay for a year of prudehood.

Grrr . . .

Ah, man. I typed a nice big post earlier this evening (rockin Fridae nite, lemmie tell ya). The internet conveniently gave out right as I tried to publish it. I was pretty hurt. It reminds me of writing long e mails to people just to have them disappear. How does the internet do that, anyway? Where do the thieved writings go? Are they just floating around in cyberspace somewhere?

Book Worm

For about the billionth time in my life I went into a bookstore, naively thinking that I could simply grab what I needed and then leave soon afterwards. Oh, how mistaken I always am. Two and a half hours later, I have my scratch pad out, jotting down intriguing titles (which is just about everything on the shelf). I just love books!--picking it up, feeling its weight in my hands, becoming curious at the title and illustration, reading the summaries and quotes, flipping the pages to smell that wonderful book smell. Aaaahhhhhhhh . . .

And I really love to read. I am still SO giddy that I have a job that basically pays me to sit and read all day. But even with all that, it's not near enuf time to come close to reading everything that sounds interesting to me. Since I got hired slightly over three months ago I've already read the following:
Four Souls by Louise Erdrich
Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson
The Queen Of The South by Arturo Perez-Reverte
All I Really Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
Our Heritage (Church)
The PeaceGiver by James L. Ferrell
Great Short Stories By American Women
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Better Than You Think You Are by Ardeth G. Kapp
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Return To Sender by Sandy Hutson
Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan
Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks
To Draw Closer To God by Henry B. Eyring
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
A Night Without Stars by James Howe
Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright
Technopoly by Neil Postman
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
A Chimp In The Family by Vince Smith
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Lectures On Faith by Joseph Smith
The Book Of Mormon
and I'm currently working on Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler, If Life Were Easy Then It Wouldn't Be Hard by Sheri Dew, and How Tough Could It Be? by Austin Murphy. This is why I've never been able to fill in my favorite books on my profile, cuz I've just read too much, and loved most of it. I like to try and get a good mixture in of church books, fiction, non-fiction, and juvy.

And I love that I'm finally old enuf (I think so, anyway, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, no doubt) to talk about how much I love to read without being thought a complete dweeb (except by the funny kids I work with. Silly kids). Cheers!

Solitaire as X Box

As I've been trying to wean myself off naps this week, I found that the only thing that was interesting enough (at the time) to keep me awake was playing solitaire. So, I commenced to play it for over an hour. I didn't win once. No matter how much I wanted to pull myself away, I just couldn't seem to. And after that marathon, I was so exhausted I needed a nap.
Today, I just decided to go straight to the sheets rather than even try. When I woke up, I felt so energized that I decided to play a little solitaire. I finally won.

Kiss of Death

I heard yesterday about this girl that was allergic to peanuts. Her boyfriend ate a peanut butter sandwich and then gave her a kiss. She died that evening from her allergic reaction. Oh man.

Bi-polarism

on a manic depressive scale of 1-10, right now I am an 11. I just got done crying to my mom on the phone (aren't mommies great?) and now have a sudden case of the giggles. Tell me something stupid, anything at all, and I'll prolly think it's funny.
This could be a serious personality flaw. The DSM IV would think so. But since it's not a long-standing characteristic, I don't think I could be diagnosed with it. And since I'm not qualified (and too mentally inept) to diagnose myself as mentally inept, I'll continue pretending to lead the normal life.
But really, because crying is such a cathartic experience, I think it must release an endorphin of some type in my brain and so then laughing just becomes so easy. It's pretty refreshing, really. I think it was an old Jewish proverb, or maybe a Chinese one, that said, "What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul." Ah, those Chinese Jews. What will they think of next?

Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year

(or comeback of his life, as I'd like to hope)

I don't blame you for being you, but you can't blame me for hating it (hanging in?)

And how

Support your local poet.

a hole to stick my head in now, please

I slobbered on myself yesterdae. Dan thought I should have been embarrassed about that, and so I proceeded to explain to him how I don't really embarrass that easily.

Fast forward about 3 hours and I found myself having one of the most embarrassing experiences that I've had in a while. There's this rope swing in Mona (some of you are familiar with it) that people have been hyping up for a bit now, and last evening I finally had the opportunity to go. I was pretty hyped up myself. It wasn't very warm outside, and the sun had already gone down when we got there. Lon starts hypothesizing about the worst case scenario. "If you dropped right there close to the shore, you'd break something," etc. Linwood and he weren't even going to swing. But I didn't drive 30 miles down there for nothing. Everybody went before I did (except Linwood), giving me ample time to completely psych myself out. So I finally climb up in the tree and stand on the little wooden platform for about ten minutes straight (much to the annoyance of everyone there), continuing to psych myself out. My arms are like little twigs, and so I was very doubtful of their ability to hold the dropping of my whole weight when I stepped off that platform. Everybody else had done it and been fine, so I finally just went for it, and basically fell straight into the water. I couldn't, or didn't anyway, hold myself on that rope past the low point of the swing, and that's where I fell in. Yeah, it was about three feet from the shore. The water was only about five feet deep there, but I guess I went barreling in at enough of an angle that I didn't hurt myself. Maybe nobody saw the mortifying plunge . . . But my head emerged to the sound of everyone cheering for me, that wholesome thing that people do when they don't want one of their peers to feel too overly stupid, which of course just ensures the feeling of stupidity. I crawled to the shore and slinked over to where my towel was. People continued swinging, and the nite attained normalcy, again. Well, for everyone else, I spose. I remain quite disconcerted. I refused to pose for the picture because it was not a moment that I wanted immortalized in any way. (I know that posting this on my blog is counterbalancing that. Overly, probably. Oh well. You see how much I trust you people, to read this and still be my friends?)

I think it really is something I could probably do, but I had just completely wigged myself out, and everyone was watching. People were talking about going back on a hot, sunny day sometime. I feel a need to go again and redeem myself. But then there's always the chance that I'll flop again. And I'm sure that nobody else could give a rat's behind if I "redeem" msyelf or not. Ah, the things we do to try and save face.

I recognize that there's really no need to be embarrassed, cuz I was there with a group of really great people, and they won't think any the less of me. But, I unintentionally exposed a vulnerable side of myself that I wouldn't have necessarily chosen to show those people. And, unfortunately, that can't be undone now, and there's really no telling how much this small and singular event will effect certain people's perceptions of me, irreversibly for the rest of time as we know it. And that is really what I regret.

All Around

"I think the world's keenest desire is for beauty, and that our knowledge of how to achieve that is the various forms of behavior and expression that we apply a single word to, which is love."

--Barry Lopez