Library

Yesterday I took my brother to the library. Now, this may not sound so impressive. If there were more readers of this blog, I daresay every single one would exclaim that that was nothing to be proud of. Why, hundreds of people every day take their brothers to the library. However, my brother possesses a special talent, a talent responsible for taking any hum drum excursion and turning it into, for lack of a better term, a journey.

To start off with, my brother is constantly plugged in. It is difficult to get him out of the house in the first place, for all of his favorite things are here. Quite frequently he will be found with a dog on his lap, his television on, and his face plugged into his computer like a three pronged electrical device. Within the time frame that I asked him to go to the library, my brother watched Hannah Montana, played on Neopets, and watched all three Charlie the Unicorns. As we left the house, I forced him to leave his Nintendo DS behind. I was determined that this excursion was going to end with my brother gaining a deep understanding of the love I have for books, and with him fostering one of his own.

"Do you want to look upstairs or downstairs for books? The kids section is downstairs, I used to love it when I was your age."

"I guess I'll look downstairs,"

"Ok sweetie! Find a nice chapter book. I'll be upstairs if you need me."

I proceeded to pat myself on the back, for the last time we went to the library, he had refused to look downstairs, favoring the "Prehistoric Fish" section upstairs, a section primarily devoted to books with few words and large paintings of said fish.

I looked for maybe twenty minutes around the library before he came upstairs again.

"Can you help me find this book?" Two call numbers were inscribed on a white sheet of scratch paper. With a sinking feeling, I realized that this book included large full color illustrations of fish. I guided him to the section and I could not find either call number. I told him to keep looking, and I resumed searching the non fiction section for books. Ten minutes later he came back with a big grin on his face and the book in his hand.

"That's great. I'm glad you found it. You should get a chapter book too. Go back downstairs."

He began to move in the opposite direction of the stairs.

"The stairs are that way, J."

"Oh, I know. I've been riding the elevator."

"What? Why? You know. . .never mind, just go find a chapter book, ok?"

"Ok. Maybe I'll look upstairs."

I started to become exasperated.

"The only books upstairs are ones for grown ups. What's wrong with the kid's section?"

"It's creepy down there. It's too young for me."

"J, just please, go find a book. And use the stairs."

At this point a librarian came over with a dirty look on her face. Our argument was attracting looks. J headed back downstairs. He returned ten minutes later with a book about twenty pages long.

"Can we go home yet?" He stood in front of the bookcase I was looking at. "I got a chapter book."

"That is not a chapter book. Where did you get that?"

"We read it in the fourth grade."

"It has a picture of a smiling mouse wearing a suit on the cover. That book is for second graders."

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

I gave up. I finished looking, let him put back the 'chapter book', and took him home. On our way back home, I learned exactly what I was fighting.

"You know, I bet this book has more words than any chapter book."

"How many pages is it?"

"One hundred."

I suppose a picture's worth a thousand words, but for his sake I hope the SATs are fish themed by the time he takes them.

"A mackerel is an a)Fish b)Pot c)Dog d)Cat"

Dear lord, please let him pick 'a'.

Music

I am here today to defend my music. I will say straight away that my favorite type of music is. . .Broadway. Yes, yes, I know that this can be strange to some, and believe me, I try to not force my music upon others. In fact, though it is customary for teenagers to compare MP3 players to see what others are listening to, I have come to simply withdraw my music player for fear of alienating any straight men within the 25 mile radius.

"Music player?" I ask while shoving it into my back pocket and covering it up with a conveniently long tee shirt, "You must be mistaken. I don't have a music player. . .at least one with anything you'd be interested in."

It usually works pretty well, unless I've pulled that trick with the person before.

"No, really. I want to see your Ipod. Maybe there's something I've heard of on there."

Thinking of the three Eagles songs, four Sheryl Crows, two Queens, and the Twilight soundtrack I uploaded by mistake, I hand it over. Familiarity sets in- I notice a glazed look in the eye as they skim through my albums. They hand it back as quickly as they had taken it, but their knowledge of me is now tainted. She is the quiet one, the actress, the sweet one, but she also likes. . .showtunes.

So, normally, I just enjoy them quietly and I don't get too much flack about it. I figured people just don't understand them. It never occured to me that anyone thought anything bad about them. Until today, when my mother and I went to go paint pottery at a little shop downtown. We live in a town in the upper Midwest part of the United States, and while it isn't the least urban place one could live, it's also just rural enough that people fancy themselves cowboys and cowgirls, especially when they own no farmland. Country music follows me everywhere, and, apparently to even out the fact that I was having fun painting pottery, God decided to smack incessant country music in my face to turn it into my own personal circle of hell. After the third song about how everyone should follow George W Bush's moral code when the man was clearly already two years out of office, I've had just about enough of Mr.twangy twang.

"God I hate country music. Can we make it stop somehow?"

"Good luck with that." My mother says, glaring at the woman placing items into the kiln. I glare at her too. But mind control clearly isn't working. The radio continues to blare country as loud as ever.

"It's just such awful music," I say, "You could probably replace all the words with gibberish in a Southern accent and people would still eat it up. It's garbage."

My mother snorts

"Well, at least we instilled some good music taste into you."

"What do you mean? I've always hated country."

"And thank God. Your father and I hate country too."

"I like good music! Musical theatre has good music!"

My mother rolls her eyes and gets back to painting her gravy boat. I watch her for a moment.

"I've met other people who like musical theatre!"

"Who?"

"Well. . .most of them were gay men. . ."

There is an awkward silence as we go back to painting, and all I can think of is why the fan base of the music matters at all. Punk people listen to punk music, emo people listen to emo music, Midwesterners listen to country music, and musical theatre people listen to musical theatre music. So what if the guys who listen to it often end up being as straight as an "S"? It doesn't make the music any less relatable or good. Sondheim's compositions contain some of the most complex vocal and instrumental combinations ever created. Jason Robert Brown writes constantly about harrowing, deep emotion. I simply don't understand the stigma. But I guess what it all boils down to is something my mother said when we got home.

"There's nothing wrong with it really. It's just not on the radio."

Hello Internet!

I have awoken from a seemingly never ending sleep to finally post on my blog. Yes, yes, I know, oh internet, that you have been feeling impatient. For all I know, you have been frantically checking it whilst foaming at the mouth. I became some sort of deity if you will, doling out blog posts hither and thither, never stopping to think of the good of my people, but rather shining in the golden light of the Gods, allowing you all to bask in my glow, and then sinking back into the clouds that contain whatever heaven you may imagine and leaving you to ask, similar to Job

My blogger, my blogger, why hast thou forsaken me?

Well all you non- believers, I happened to have a very good reason. My computer was confiscated because I spent too much time doing what my mother calls "Facebooking". I have come to believe that my mother has no idea how to use Facebook at all, an idea supported both by the fact that she has only been on it twice and that she thinks Facebook has functions that it has never, or will never have, including:

Chatting with people who aren't online

Knowing who other people are talking to online

Using facebook chat with my cell phone

Twittering

In reality, my Facebook is up all the time, and most of the time I'm on the computer surfing the internet, completely oblivious to anything happening on Facebook. And, when I am on Facebook, I am usually just chatting. My mother lately has seemed to have a problem with any form of non verbal communication between me and my friends.

"Honey?"

"Uh huh?"

"Why must you text in the car?"

"I'm sorry. Did you want me to talk to you instead?"

"That's not the point. It's rude to text in the car."

"Why?"

"Can't you just call them or something? How about you talk on the phone?"

"Wouldn't it be ruder if I had a loud conversation with them in the car?"

"I guess. . .I just don't like that clacky noise. . .clack clack clack."

This discussion happens every time we leave the house to go anywhere. I don't know what my mother dislikes so much about texting in the car- I can only assume that she believes I am training to be an undercover spy and she is afraid my texting noises will give me away in a moment requiring stealth.

I suppose I can live with it if it means being a spy.

The 1950's, Part One

Ah, the 1950's. A time of innocence. Romance. Sweethearts in black and white photos. Homosexual repression and sexism. Let me explain: I unearthed four public service announcement videos dating from the 1950's, two on puberty and two on sexual predators, and I was shocked at what I found. Today I will be covering the first two: As Boys Grow and Molly Grows Up.

First off, in the male puberty video, "As Boys Grow", the boys got a delightful discussion on both male and female anatomical structures from their happy go lucky gym coach and his misshapen penis diagram. The explanation of the changes their bodies go through was comprehensive and open. It even seemed to reassure Steven, a tall boy who sits in the back of the classroom and asks questions that made it seem like he had gotten an unwanted erection far too many times for his liking. The boys even learned how babies were made through the usage of his awkward genital diagrams. On the whole, I felt as though this video was quite progressive, and I was hoping the same for the video that the girls were supposed to watch.

I was wrong. From the way that "Molly Grows Up" was portrayed, getting one's period was the most complex thing ever. Whereas the boys got a ten second discussion on menstruation, just so they would know the devil they were up against when they got married, the girls got a whole fifteen minutes on how it works and lists of what one could and couldn't do when on their period. Examples:

Horseback Riding

Cold Showers

Swimming

Strenuous Exercising

Hot Showers

Square Dancing

Running

What's more, these girls were given no information on male anatomy or sex at all. They didn't even say the word sperm. I imagined a girl on her wedding night who had never had any information other than this video:

"Well honey, I suppose it's time for bed. Just think, we can share a bed now that we're married!"

"Yes. . .yes we can. In more ways than one, Natalie."

"What do you mean, Sam?"

"We have to create a child now."

"Oh, ok, Sam. I would love to. But why are you taking off your pants? What. . .what on earth is that?!"

I could only assume that they did that on purpose, as some way to not make women expect too much out of sex. But to not even mention it? It seemed like an instant way to create teenage pregnancies and misconceptions about sexually transmitted diseases and sex in general. And according to http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/05/1/gr050107.html ,by the late 1950's, the teen pregnancy rate was over twice as much as it was in 2000. I imagined that by 1956, thousands of sweaty teenagers were in the back of pickup trucks all over the nation, feeling as invincible as teenagers do today, because, hey, who ever said no to this marvelous discovery, something of which one of two sweaty teenagers may have even believed no one on earth had ever known before that night?

One last funny note on that data: I noticed there was a correlation graph to how many of those teenagers were married when they got pregnant, and quite predictably, most of the teenagers in the 50's were said to be married when they had their children. I couldn't help but think of the grooms at the altar, watching their slightly pale, dizzy looking brides make their way down the aisle. I imagined these grooms saying "I do" with exuberance as they lifted their brides off their feet, kissed them, and whispered in their ears,

"No one will ever know."

The Future, Part Two

Today I was planning to tell an amusing anecdote about how I spent forty five minutes at a practice that I had no need to be at. I was going to explain in detail about how much I enjoyed learning simple ballet warmups with Aili Smith and how excited I was getting for the show. . .when Aili pulled out a list of dancing partners and I was left standing alone in a corner, perplexed. I eventually went home, after being informed that I wasn't needed at practice until next Thursday. But I actually have a little bit of seriousness that I need to talk about today. You may recall in my last post about the future, that I discussed wanting to be an actress for my career. Well, today I learned that my dream was very tangible. My mother told me when I got home from a play tonight that the audition guidelines for the Guthrie Internship were online. I immediately went to my computer and gazed at the facts before me. My response?

Breathe. Breathe! BREATHE!

Twenty people chosen out of a nationwide audition search. Four and a half minute audition and that's it. My mind started to run through every play I'd ever heard of ever for audition material. My back tensed up. I didn't know why I felt in such a state of shock. I wanted to get in, didn't I? Then I realized: this tension, this wasn't from auditions. This tension was from having to make a decision right now on what I want to do for the rest of my life. Honestly, right now, I wish I was five and still able to say:

"Rawr! I want to be a dinosaur when I grow up!" And then I could promptly bite the nearest adult who dared to contradict me.

The Second Coming Of Christ

Today the anticlimax was the bane of my existence. I came home around nine today, only to be informed of a tornado warning in the area. I didn't really listen until around nine thirty, when my brother started freaking out in the living room like he had seen the eyes of God piercing through the darkened heavens.

"We need to get downstairs! The weather is scary outside."

"We will be fine sweetie."

From down the hall, I heard the news anchor on TV declare his forecast of the weather:

We interrupt your worrying to bring you another thing to worry about. The tornado warning has been put in effect in Ward county. Cower in your basements puny mortals!

"Mom. . .where do we live?"

"Ward County."

"Mom, I don't want to die!"

Five minutes later, my parents shouted down the hall to unplug everything and head downstairs. At the foot of the stairs stood my incredibly wired brother, clutching our dog as if she was his last lifeline on earth.

"Hurry and get down here! It's not safe upstairs!"

"J, it's just a tornado. We're not going to die."

"How do you know that? You know what? Just leave me alone."

"J, just calm down. Give me the dog." The poor dog by now was gazing longingly at the floor, as if visualizing her escape from the terrified eleven year old who was noticeably keeping at least three feet from the window downstairs.

"I will not give you the dog! She's terrified!"

Before I could retort that this was clearly projection onto the dog, my mother came downstairs, cleared out the laundry closet and told us to get inside. I went upstairs to get our other dog, a notebook, and my brother's gameboy, for in the course of roughly three minutes the storm had transformed from the second coming of Christ to something only almost as interesting as his video game.

Nearly as soon as I reentered the closet, the warning passed, leaving me highly angry at mother nature for not giving the just retribution to Minot that she had promised. It had appeared that mother nature was trying to appease me, for fifteen minutes later she promised a return of the tornado from earlier. Once again I trudged down to the closet, hoping for some sort of climax to all this buildup. And. . .nothing. I spent fifteen minutes in a closet with my brother and our dogs, who were making abominable noises and smells, and I didn't even get to say it was for any reason.

Incidentally, my brother was the last to leave the closet. He wanted to sleep in it, but my mother wouldn't let him.

"Everything that's important to me is in here," he said, pointing at his videogames. "Oh, except you guys I guess. You're kind of important too."

Celebrity

I do not understand celebrity culture. Sure I enjoy seeing actors and actresses and singers and performers do their thing, and I enjoy interviews of them explaining how they did it etc. But I simply do not understand this mindset that somehow celebrity=GOD. There are magazines and websites devoted entirely to the lives of people I will never meet. If I wanted, right now I could probably search Taylor Swift's Favorite Color and come up with an accurate answer in a matter of seconds.

Answer: White

When would this information ever be useful? Even if I met Taylor Swift, how many times in

our day to day lives do I actually need to know someone else's favorite color? Favorite colors

were invented as conversation fillers for boring people. Example:

"Damn. . .been waiting in this movie line forever Jim."

"I know Jerry. Hey you know what's funny?"

"What, Jim?"

"We've known each other, what, twenty years?"

"Yup. And?"

"I still don't know your favorite color Jerry."

"Oh. . .it's blue, Jim. What's yours?"

"Orange."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's nice. How about them Yankees?"

What's more, now if I ever meet Taylor Swift, I have one less point of conversation. I

already know her favorite color. No wonder celebrities usually go out with other celebrities-I

can't imagine liking someone who already knew everything about me. In celebrity culture, these

people are called 'fans'. In real life, these people are called stalkers. If someone came up to me

right now and told me that they knew everything about me and always read the paper looking

for news about me and had pictures of me all over their walls, I would call the police. A girl saying

they are obsessed with Robert Pattinson is 'adorable'. A girl exhibiting the same behavior to a

real boy is creepy.

Taking it one step further, not only do these magazines exhibit trivial facts about these stars,

but they constantly dissect their love lives, parenting, and secret photos taken of them.

Sometimes all three at once- Cosmo magazine does a special every month on photos taken of

celebrities so they can determine everything from how close the celebrity couple's bonds are

to how happy the celebrities themselves are. And people eat it up. They send in letters praising

the segments on their 'accurate analysis'. It's like some cosmic form of high school gossip.

"So I hear Jane and Thomas are on the way out."

"Oh yeah. Look at them walk down the hallway together. You can totes see that they aren't

into being seen together anymore."

"Not only that Veronica, look at this pic on my phone."

"Omg! Is that. . ."

"Thomas and Ruby making out at my party last night? Yup. You wanna make this pic viral?"

"Love to."

Only instead of being humiliated over Facebook, Thomas and Ruby and Jane are splashed

across the cover of every magazine in the United States. Goodbye To Celebrity Couple types

the gleeful demon responsible for these blown up headlines. Facebook pictures can be erased,

relationships can be saved, but those headlines, those are forever.

At least until we get bored and move onto juicier gossip.