This was super fun to write.

30 minutes of my writing (so you will see the errors...there are many).

I was given a grade of 5/6. I need 4.5 to get into my program. Or a 154 on the verbal section. I think I'm going to get in. So that's exciting.

I need to leave more time to proofread and apparently I always have to write a conclusion paragraph, even though those things are STUPID. Like...were you paying attention to what I said? Guess not. Let me say it again in other words. Sigh.

I really wish I had gotten a 6. 

Also, the question for this essay was not copy-pasteable, but it was something like, "Men and women are physically different, so they are better suited for many different tasks." Pfffft. It depends entirely on what you mean by "many." 

I personally really don't think it's that many. 

***

I object to the the claim's qualification of "many"; If we were to compare the tasks that are ideal for most men and the tasks that are ideal for most women, the vast majority of the number of tasks would fall within the overlapping area. While it is true that men and women are not physically the same, we are more alike than we are different. Therefore, I strongly disagree with this statement, and even object to its subtle hints of perverted adherence to a primeval male patriarchal order through its oversimplified phrasing and socio-historical context.

Let us start by thinking about tasks that are clearly only possible, let alone suitable, for women. Can a man grow a baby inside his body for nine months, birth that baby through his nonexistant birth canal, and then proceed to breastfeed him or her for the next two years or more? Scientists have thus far been utterly unable to replicate human wombs; in India, women sell their services as surrogate birth mothers every day. Millions of people pay billions of dollars for In Vitro Fertilization; they cannot outsource this task to a machine. So far, there is no other way for a child to enter this world than through contact with a female uterus. Therefore we can unequivocally state that there is at least one universal task relevant to all human beings for which men are utterly unsuited. As for birth canals and lactation, it is possible to be born via C-section, to live on a diet of only formula, and even for men to take lactation-inducing hormones which allow them to physically sustain a baby through the first few months to years of their life. Still, even though these tasks are not universal to all human beings, we can say with great confidence that female anatomy is much better suited - designed, even - for their performance.

Let us next start thinking about tasks that are best suited for men. In general, men are bigger, stronger, physically faster, have deeper voices, are better at visualizing 3D objects in their minds, and can both become physically aroused and reach orgasm much faster. Neither are these inherent physical differences universal to all men, nor do they constitute the entire breadth of male capacity and potential. If you were to compare a female olympic athlete to an average sedentary computer scientist, she would physically outmatch him in strength, speed, endurance, and possibly even size. Hypersexual women exist who could rival the time of any male arousal-to-ejaculation cycle. This generalization really depends so much on the specific men and women about whom one is speaking.

Now let us consider the breadth, depth, and quality of the tasks suited for both genders. Men and women are both people equipped with bodies, brains, hearts, feelings, emotions, memories, psychology, relationships, and so much more. Our human genome is almost physically identical. The most compelling reasons and examples to challenge my position are not universal to all men and women, not frequent occurences in daily life, and are in no way representative of the qualifier "many." The number of tasks for which men and women are equally suited far exceeds the number of tasks for which our physical differences matter. In the end, it is both the lack of qualification of what group of men or women we are talking about and mostly the tiny adjective "many" to which I object so strongly.

What are "wonderful contentions"? Alma 2:5

What are "wonderful contentions"? Alma 2:5

(Sorry for the long delay in writing - lots of stuff in my world. I have not given up this project, and although it's not so visible as when I'm blogging, I actually do read my scriptures every single day. Right now I'm reading the Old Testament and Book of Mormon. The OT is so weird and awesome. The BoM is less weird and even more awesome in most measurable ways.)

Amlici wants to be king. He's an evil guy. He was after the order of Nehor, this secret society of people that included the guy who killed Gideon, a war hero, by the sword and was later executed for it.

Amlici was convincing. People wanted to make him king. He had followers. If the people voted for him to be king, he would totally overthrow the democracy they had and destroy the liberty of the people. The people would no longer be able to worship freely.

So it comes the day for the big vote. The people assembled themselves for or against Amlici in separate bodies, "having much dispute and wonderful contentions one with another."

I was wondering what the heck is a "wonderful" contention? I mean, usually contention is uncountable, first of all. But second of all, what does it mean to be "wonderful"? That word has distinctly positive connotations for a 21st century reader.


This n-gram of the use of the word "wonderful" over time certainly seems to show that this word has experienced diachronic change.

In Joseph Smith's day, and according to this data, it was ~30% more frequent.

My gut tells me that "wonderful" from the 1830's is kinda like "awesome." It probably doesn't have a strictly positive connotation, but it's more connected to the root words: wonder and awe.

Certainly Mormon, the great historian of the Book of Mormon who lived in a time totally lacking religious freedom or democratic values or processes would have been in awe of a system like what existed in the day of Amlici. I imagine that in a nascent America, one in which Joseph Smith's known (and probably some living!) relatives served in a war to secure basic liberties and rights, political discourse would have also been pretty awe-inspiring and wondrous (the adjectives we use nowadays to mean awesome and wonderful).

Answer:
The reason the contentions were remarkable was because a. enough had been written about them in the history for centuries later Mormon to be able to imagine/contrast them vividly when he was writing the abridgment and b. democratic processes are always somewhat amazing. The fact that we don't have to resort to "might is right", that we, as human beings, can listen to reason at all, is incredible. It is "wonderful." I don't think it's a tacit endorsement by Mormon of fighting or contending with others, it's more of a remark that sometimes arguments, especially when it comes to politics, aren't fully evil.

They sure aren't my most favorite cup of tea, though.

brain dumping on Mother's Day

It's mother's day! Yay! I love mother's day. I love being a mother. It is really a lot of work, but it is also sweet and rewarding. I always knew I wanted to be a mother. I'm so glad that Danny and I have these five beautiful, amazing children in our lives. 

I'm not going to waste my time feeling guilty about the fact that I also want to pursue other dreams. I think that's okay, and there are lots of ways to do this well - in fact, as many as there are women. I guess there is likely to be a statistically significant number of women who have a natural desire and inclination for early childhood life and living. It's okay that I'm not always that kind of mom, and that I really deeply crave getting out of my house and talking to real people about ideas and theories about the world. 

[Side note: I spent a lot of time the past decade feeling guilty about this, but I am pretty much over that. It's okay to have multiple dreams if you have your priorities straight. Danny assures me that I do, and he is extremely supportive of my dream to go back to school and pursue a career in the weird field of linguistics. Somewhere near the area around computer-assisted language learning, corpus linguistics, second language acquisition and testing...something like that. Not quite sure yet, but that's perfectly okay!]

I got myself a mother's day gift. It was about $12. A series of bullet journals that I thought were really pretty. Basically, bullet journaling is another recent female trend like Kon-Mari-ing your house. It is a different way to write and keep a planner.

My friend Megan showed me her bullet journal in January. She wanted to design something for me, but I couldn't really figure out what I needed. My friend Karin showed me hers and I thought it was interesting. Somehow randomly I had already found an app called "a year in pixels" which is basically borrowing from the bullet journal concept, except as an app. It's been extremely useful for me to visualize my moods. 

I spent a little bit of time while nursing Joey in the middle of the night last night looking at ideas for bullet journals. I quickly got extremely bored with it for these reasons:

a. A lot of vloggers care a lot more about how the thing looks than how to make it useful

b. Usefulness > copycat picture-perfect designs. I got a few ideas, but mine is going to look a lot different; I don't like daily pages at all and I can come up with and free-hand my own designs with total confidence. Also, I will have a lot more mistakes. And I don't care about the pens. At all. Whatsoever.

c. I have good penmanship. I can write very beautifully. It's not important to me. Most vloggers were more interested in showing off same-y calligraphy than talking about the thing in action. 

But hey, I didn't look that extensively and it was like 4 am, so maybe I missed something.

I've really enjoyed the act of writing in a bullet journal. I have decided to use it as a way to record my achievements. I've had a system of post-it notes for a to-do list for some time now, and that has worked surprisingly well. I don't need to make huge to-do lists; I'm like, the queen of that already. What I need is to recognize the little achievements and accomplishments I have already managed to do. So this bullet journal is basically a way to track my projects as well as to list my achievements each week. It feels good. It's nice to see a fat, full page of stuff that I managed to do. My to-do lists never make me feel satisfied because my strategy is to make a list of 100 things and then accomplish 10. Danny says most people have a different approach: make a list of 4 things and accomplish all 4. I usually end up doing more things but feeling less satisfied. But this way I can focus more on just the 10. It's really great.

For example, this week I did really well on a mock GRE test. It feels nice to see that on a list of things I got done this week. 

****

In other news, I decided to stop taking antihistamines to help me sleep. I have been taking them daily since about February or March.

I have problems with:

- falling asleep

- staying asleep (I am a very light sleeper)

- falling back asleep <-- once I'm awake, that's it. I am awake. 

- occasional insomnia where it's not just 15-45 minutes to fall asleep but like, 3-4 hours. It is awful because usually I feel tired. I just can't seem to sleep.

On a side note, I always dream. Every night. I don't always remember the dreams for very long after waking unless I write them down. Sometimes they are pretty abstract and hard to put into words; somehow the words spoils it. I have vivid memories of my dreams, especially places. I also have nightmares fairly often. Definitely multiple times per week, I would say. Usually it's easy to trace the source, but not always.

So yeah. I'd been taking Benadryl (diphenhydramine) for a while but then when we ran out, I took Unisom (Doxylamine), a similar antihistamine. The effects of Unisom on my body are much more pronounced. I had to cut the pills in half so I would be able to function the next day, and for this past month I've still been struggling with kind of a brain-fog during the day. Also I am fairly certain it's increased my water retention (ugh bloating) as well as constipation (ugh more bloating). It also gives me kind of a dry mouth, which isn't that pleasant. But still, it's better than not being able to sleep.

I read some Harvard study that showed that there is a correlation between prolonged antihistamine use and dementia. I really, really don't want dementia! On the other hand, maybe it increased the likelihood from 1% to 1.5% - I didn't read it too closely (generally I try to stay away from self-diagnosis and health information on the internet because I am prone to obsessiveness and anxiety, the bedfellows of hypochondriac-ism. If I knew more Latin, I'd know the correct ending to that word. I bet it exists. Sigh). 

Anyway, the "ideal" is to not be on drugs anyway - and I've been really frustrated at my plateauing weight loss. So I decided to try not taking any pills to help sleep.

I am certain Joey gets a mild dose of it through the breast milk but it's one of those Class C drugs, and my OB/GYN and lactation consultant both told me it was okay to take while breastfeeding. But the thing is, that mild dose of it seems to affect him, too, because last night was the first time since October that I've needed to crawl out of bed to go feed him. Danny was irritated. He wanted to get a bottle to feed him. But the thing is...Danny is a heavy sleeper. It seems really stupid to me to tap sleeping Danny on the shoulder to wake him up so that he can be irritable and grouchy, while meanwhile I am laying there unable to fall back asleep, and the milk let-down is making a mess, and I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for causing Danny to be annoyed at me. "I'm not annoyed! It's always just this feelings of, "what's going on?" when I wake up," he assures me. But it certainly sounds really angry to me. It feels awful. Anyway, there's an endless supply of weird and interesting things to read and watch on my phone. It's better than lying in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to slurping sounds from the nursery down the hall.

We will see how long this experiment lasts. Maybe I will end up going back to Benadryl. The crappy thing was that not only did I wake up at 4:30 for Joey last night, but I also woke up at 11:45 and 1:30, both times with pretty lousy headaches. There is an enormously strong correlation between me getting a good night's sleep and my mood/anxiety being tolerable enough to function. 

On the other hand, maybe it's enough to try extra hard to make sure a "sleep routine" is in place. Laying in bed reading is - well, it can be - a super helpful way for me to calm my mind. Drinking some warm herbal tea before might be another option.

****

In other other news, I've spent the past few weeks juggling course schedules and I think I figured out the way to optimize both time and cost for my family. If I were to be a full time student and take 9 credits per semester, I could graduate by Fall 2022. That's six semesters over the space of three years. Maybe my parents won't have moved to Utah by then and they can be a real help to us with childcare.

Turns out, childcare for 5 kids is very expensive. I hadn't even looked at the cost before today.

Danny, always the negative Nancy realist, is skeptical that it could work with me having such a full schedule. But I've been looking at the times when the classes are taught and I've figured out that most semesters I can just take all the classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which would significantly decrease the load. And most of our kids will be in school - except Joey, who will need to be cared for. If my mom is still here and can help out, that would be great. There's one semester where the classes I have to take are taught from 2:20-3:30. That is a really crappy time of day when you have elementary school kids. But on the other hand, by that time Jane will be 12 years old and possibly old enough to babysit under very controlled conditions. But on the other other hand, that's the most important time of the day. Ugh. A nanny is like 3x cheaper than the after school care program, which is definitely not designed for families with 5 kids. And on top of that, Joey will still need to be cared for during that time. Ames is like 30 minutes away, and there will be some buffer time from when I leave class to get to my car. It's unlikely I'll be able to be home before 4:20-4:30. So that's 2 hours 4 days a week. I don't know. I keep feeling like there has to be a way to make that work but Danny is so negative and skeptical, raining on my dreams. It's good that he's there to reign me in from doing rash, impulsive things. It's also good that he can see costs that I can't. I have to keep reminding myself about that.

This is putting the horse way, wayyyy before the cart. I haven't even been accepted to ISU yet. So I have to like...apply.

This weekend we went on a date walking around campus. It was really fun and nice for both of us. It's a beautiful campus and there were all the graduating students walking around in their funny robes and hats. It was fun to read the comics and stuff posted on the doors of the English professors. Some of them would even fit in with my super liberal left-wing high school teachers :-) I mean, I know universities skew liberal, but I went to BYU where "liberal" looks like something else to most normal people. 

Time to go make dinner for my mom. I was at the store yesterday and the woman asked if I was doing anything for mother's day. "Probably cooking for my mom." "Oh that's nice. I wish my mom were still around for me to cook for." That made me want to cry. I love my mom. I love cooking for her. I love that she lives close. I am really anxious about them moving away before I get the chance to do this degree. I don't at the moment see how it will be possible without her help and support with childcare. But...people do it...so...it must be possible. It's just maybe the sacrifice will end up looking too big for either Danny or me. Oh man. I just really hope that isn't the case.

What do latter-day saints believe is the proper way to care for the dead?

I was asked this question today by a friend, and so I wanted to write a longer answer here.

Latter-day saints believe in the resurrection of all humans. Some will be resurrected earlier than others, but everybody is going to get resurrected. Resurrection for latter-day saints means that our spirits will reunite with a perfect version of a prime body, approximately age 25-35 or so. The exception to this is that little children will be resurrected as little children. They will have the opportunity of growing up with a physical body. We know almost nothing about that doctrine except that it is so. Someday my brother and sister in law will see their little girl Elsie again, and they will get to actually hold her and physically be with her. There is no definitive doctrine about what happens to the unborn. We don't know if their spirits go back in line, waiting to come to earth, or if they count as full "humans" or what. We also don't know if there is variation, and if so, where is the exact line marking when the fetus is or is not a human. The fact that we don't know is what causes us to be extra cautious.

My personal opinion is that this knowledge is kept hidden from us on purpose. We are accountable for what we know. I think that God is protecting our agency by keeping this hidden. In a way, it is a kin of mercy to not know.

Latter-day saints believe that our bodies are sacred. They are a key part of the plan of salvation. They are sacred because they house our spirits. A body and a spirit together form a "soul." When the spirit is gone, the body is just matter. The spirit goes to the spirit world. It doesn't hang out around the location the decaying physical matter that was its body. Most of the time there is a veil drawn between the spirit world and the physical world. Spirits can sometimes see us, and we can sometimes see spirits. But it's not common, and it's usually for a reason - ie not random.

Places/times when the veil between the living is especially thin: at momentous life moments like birth and death, in the temple, and sometimes during prayer.

[tangent]
I have personally had experiences where the veil was very thin for me. For example, when I was at BYU I wanted more than anything to trace my Czech ancestors back to their original villages so that I (and my descendants) would have a way to submit their names to do proxy temple ordinance work for them. I had no way of finding the records. All of my searching felt really fruitless. I actually wrote a long journal-type post about it before, detailing how the week that Czech records became available on Familysearch I tried in this very tedious, hacky way to see if the places referred to one or two of the village names which I knew. I was lucky to have even those names, and to know my ancestors were from Moravia. I didn't have a clue where. Anyway, there were many, many hundreds (not an exaggeration) of hours trying to search, trying to read, trying to learn how to learn about what I wanted to know. I felt massive amounts of frustration. We moved to Texas, about an hour away from where my Czech ancestors lived. We spend many more hours in cemeteries there, trying to find them.

I must have been praying a lot all throughout this process, but I remember a specific time when I got on my knees and prayed in our house in Katy. I had been ironing Danny's shirts. I was so overwhelmed with frustration and dissatisfaction. I prayed that I would someday be able to find my ancestors. I was immediately overwhelmed with what can only be described as an other-worldly experience. It was not from me at all. I had been feeling extremely gloomy and despairing. But suddenly I felt as though the room were full of my Czech ancestors. That they were all right there, that they were very pleased and excited about what I was doing. That they didn't want me to give up. That they knew I would find them. There were more than I could count. It was as though I was only just barely allowed to know the impact that "finding them" would actually mean, numbers-wise. This experience was life altering for me. Maybe it's silly to share it.
[/tangent]

Human bodies are sacred because of what they hold and because of what they allow us to accomplish/become. We would not be able to achieve exaltation without them.

Living human bodies should always be treated with respect and a degree of reverence. Period. I was going to go off on another tangent about human sexuality and its sacredness but it seems so self-evident that I decided to leave it alone.

Dead human bodies should be treated with respect and a degree of reverence as well, but only because we, the ones remaining, need it. Our respect and reverence to dead bodies is not for the deceased's sake.

"Respect and reverence" means vastly different things to different people. Some latter-day saints, for example in Japan, perceive it more respectful and clean to cremate their dead. That is okay. In some places, the cost of burial is prohibitive, so cremation is also okay. In some places, burial is not possible or even legal.

I come from a western culture. My traceable ancestors were all Europeans who believed in the Bible. There's definitely a Biblical justification for burial which has probably been twisted to be tied to doctrine or other beliefs in Christianity. But like, not all Christians even believe that all people will be resurrected, so...

If resurrection is universal, of course burial can't have an effect on it. People who lived thousands (or millions) of years ago have no trace of their bodies left on earth. Or they've been absorbed and reabsorbed multiple times. No, how we treat our dead must logically only be about the effects on the living. We treat our dead with love and reverence, and that can mean different things in different cultures.

I have no idea where I will be buried. I suppose I would like to be buried next to Danny, but nothing else really matters. I will be buried in my ceremonial temple clothes, which are kinda strange looking but that is the tradition for faithful saints, and that's fine.

How should the bodies of dead fetuses be treated? I don't have one simple answer to that. I know that anti-abortion politicians try to push for burials for aborted babies because they believe it will have an impact on decreasing the number of abortions. I don't think it's the greatest way to spend taxpayer's money, and I also don't think it will be that likely to have the expected outcome. But I'm also not against it outright. I can sympathize with the desire to do "whatever it takes" to prevent elective abortions.

The idea of performing a funeral for all miscarriages, including fertilized eggs, is completely ludicrous.

If I were to have a miscarriage, what would I do with the fetus? I have thought about that before a few times, but having never experienced a miscarriage, it is hard to say for certain. I have had some really heavy periods that were massively uncomfortable. I suppose it would depend a lot if there was anything that could undeniably be identified as a body. I guess most likely it would either end up in a pad or the toilet. I suppose I would probably fish it out and put it in a jar and then we would cremate it. But...perhaps I'm totally wrong and I would simply flush it. I don't know. It would be a joint decision, which is why my gut reaction would be to save it. It's unlikely Danny would be home while it happened, though I suppose he might be. If I had to have a non-elective abortion for some reason, I think we would likely choose to have the remains of our unborn child cremated. We may or may not have a headstone. The idea of an urn with the ashes is kind of gross to me. But I can see why people do that.

There is very little reason to believe I will ever have a miscarriage or a non-elective abortion, fortunately. When my parents die, I will respect their wishes and see that they are buried as they directed in their will or elsewhere. I am unlikely to have to bury a child. If I had to bury Danny, I would definitely want a grave where I could sit and feel close to him. But that is really depressing to think about.

This article from 1972 is still relevant, if you want further reading about cremation from a latter-day saint perspective. Some wildly weird stories in it.

Paralizing Tendancies with One's Self and One's Pears. Ugh. Terrrrrible typos.

Some people believe that competition for high grades motivates students to excel in the classroom. Others believe that such competition seriously limits the quality of real learning.

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

My own position is that generalizations about what is universally motivating to students are mostly meaningless; motivation is a highly individual thing. That said, I think that introducing unnecessary stress factors in students' lives needs significant justification in order to mitigate potential risk. In my opinion, placing undue emphasis on competition between students carries with it an unjustifiably high amount of risk, though I think competition with one's self can be healthy for some students in some situations. In an ideal world, the learning environment of each student would be entirely tailored to fit his or her unique perceptions and psychology; since we live in a reality without sufficient resources to reach that ideal, moderation would be the safest approach.

The individual and unique backgrounds of each student certainly play a huge role in determining what motivates them. Some students are more comfortable with competing with other people, and perhaps this might be a learned behavior or attitude from their upbringing, native culture, or family environment. Humans are also born with tendancies and temperaments which will certainly play a factor in what does or does not motivate them. A third factor is the belief system which the student chooses - not only their religious beliefs, but their individual value system. Some students place a much higher internal emphasis than others on winning, which affects how they are motivated. Competition for higher grades can motivate some students, but it can also deter others from success. The devil is, as always, in the details.

If the competition aspect is between other students as opposed to just with one's self, I feel that there is a great risk in placing too much emphasis on the grade. Failure can be painful enough, but to certain people, the stress and anxiety caused by knowing that all of their mistakes will be on public display to their peers can be truly paralizing. I personally believe that some of the best, longest-lasting learning takes place in a social environment. When students are pitted against one another, a feeling of ire and comparison is fostered rather than kindness and appreciation. This is not ideal for learning.

The final factor why I personally feel that promoting competition for high grades, either competition with one's self or one's pears, misses the point of real learning is that no matter how detailed the assessment, it still can only measure one thing: one's ability to perform on the assessment. While school classes may be bound by syllabi and semester deadlines, and therefore are forced to measure performance in grades, the reality is that real learning is not always - or even usually - so clear cut. For example, one person may perform extremely well on a standardized French test but then completely freeze when needing to ask for directions on the streets of Paris, while a second person might bomb the test but communicate easily and without problems in a real life scenario. Who "learned" French better? The test here failed on some level to measure a student's real learning, and more important than the student's achievement is their willingness to commit to continual future learning. By taking a moderate approach to competition in the classroom we can both measure performance on specific tasks as well as not unnecessarily overemphasize competition, thus avoiding anxiety and animosity between peers.

Ugh. I really hated this essay. If someone were to ask this question to me in real life, I would ask them a whole slew of clarifying questions, in particular of the pragmatic meaning. What is this question really asking? What is its agenda? I have no idea. 

Eye. Freaking. Roll.

Beatrice brushing her teeth

Is love the big things or the little things? Or is it something else altogether?

Can a naive infatuation grow into something more mature and valuable?

Is it love when the person you care about doesn't even know you?

Would Dante have inevitably gotten irritated at the way Beatrice brushed her teeth and left hairballs in the sink? Would she have been disgusted at his farts and nose-picking?

***

Some things I love about Danny that I've been thinking about now for a long time, itching to write about, are how he literally never complains or even seems to notice those kinds of flaws in me. I'm a girl. I have long hair. It used to be much longer. Hairballs really were and are a thing, especially from brushes. Those things try to land in the garbage but are so light and airborne they often fail. The vacuum cleaner is always full of hair. The washing machine is always full of hair. The dryer lint catcher is always full of hair.

It's really gross and annoying to me, too.

But Danny doesn't ever get annoyed by it, at least outwardly. He's also literally never asked me to take a shower because I smell horrible, even though that happens sometimes. I mean, I'm a girl so my sweat's supposed to smell like roses, but the truth is, it doesn't. Hahaha.

Danny has told me before that he's very good at deciding to put the irritating things in a little box and shelve it for a while. He usually throws away all those little boxes before ever opening them. Actually, I'm pretty certain he doesn't even box half the kinds of things I would.

My emotions don't work like that at all, though. I don't have boxes and shelves. I don't nitpick his hygiene constantly (unless I'm pregnant, but that's a special case where I feel constantly nauseous and surrounded by horrible smells and headachey and exhausted). But that's... Because he has good hygiene. But also because I love him. I want to be kind.

Danny isn't very assertive when it comes to the little things. Sometimes this is quite frustrating because I want to please him and he wants keep the peace. Quite often I am the driving force in decisions and actions. I am constantly asking him to do x or y for me. He doesn't tend to take the initiative to just do the little things himself. This can be good but it can also be quite stressful for me. I actually... Really enjoy the feeling of being needed. I enjoy submitting my will to his. It's not much fun to have to pry that will out with a crowbar. Or to feel like a nag or a control freak.

Danny is firm and unwaveringly steady in the big things. He wakes up every Sunday morning at 5:30 or 6 am to attend bishopric meeting. He gets himself all the way ready for church without complaining. I've never heard him complain about that. He's steady in his work commitments even though it would be easy to not keep a full accounting of his hours, since he's salaried and his boss is extremely relaxed and accommodating. Danny also tries very hard to make sure that I get enough sleep. For the past few years, this means he has been in charge of getting the kids ready for school. He does this without help, including praying and reading scriptures with them. Our scripture study together isn't always particularly long or in depth, but I don't even remember missing a day. We've read all the scriptures together, from cover to cover.

Danny keeps my computer up to date. He also pays our tithing. He is good at those kinds of steady things.

I'm not.

I'm good at paying the bills. Most of the time. I'm good at cooking dinner. Unless I'm too tired, and we just order pizza. I'm good at keeping a clean house, in spite of the other five disasters we live with. Except when I'm a slob. Granted, I'm not... I'm not as much of a slob as some people who I won't name. I am not always very good at balancing my responsibilities. I'm unusually good at finding pleasure in work-like activities that don't have to do with my physical body. I get really bored with caring for this outside shell, but I consistently try to do so anyway. It's never fun in the moment for me. 

I don't measure my love for Danny by the sum total of how well he performs in these capacities. I just... Love him.

I would love him even if he were much more difficult to live with.

I'm reminded of a specific thought I had when I was dating, a special time when you get to kind of try out what other people are like and decide what matters to you. Something that mattered to me then, and still matters to me now, is that I have to be able to eat around him. Sometimes people can be so disgusting when they chew. Bad table manners are just the tip of it, though; I don't want to be with someone who hovers over my plate or tries to control my eating with weird comments. I grew up with that, to some extent. I understand now how and why that happened. But I still don't like it.

I have never, not once in my life, felt like that around Danny. The only time I don't like eating around him is when he's eating cereal and I'm not. But that's just because it's really ridiculously crunchy and it's a weird little quirk if mine with literally anyone. I am positive he's not a grosser cereal eater than anyone else, and I'm also positive he's a less gross cereal eater than many people who shall remain nameless.

True love is work. It's promises and renewed commitment to keep them. It's relaxing with a person you can really trust. It's feeling at home. It's sharing the big and the little. It's going to meet him at work for lunch even when it means I'm not going to get the time I wanted to myself. It's picking out the kind of crackers I know he likes. It's asking for things that I want nicely, with pleases and thank yous and kisses. It's smiling. It's listening. It's trusting everything I have and am to someone else, and covenanting with them and with God that I will be loyal. It's sharing a stupid article that made me laugh and laugh and laugh. It's telling them how they can be better in a kind, gentle way - like a suggestion or proposal more than a criticism. It's dreaming about him and longing to be with him at all times. It's wishing the children could be quiet and not need so much attention so we could have a full conversation without interruptions. It's cooking a favorite meal or leaving a small note somewhere for him to find. It's making sure I put on makeup and do something with my hair to look a bit nice. It's a constant desire to become pregnant, even when I really actually don't think that makes any kind of logical sense for our family. It is feeling happy and understood even when there are no words. It's the way I feel about Danny.

This kind of love is easy for me to understand. What's hard is to figure out the limits of friendship-love and to feel satisfied within them. I want to have close, lasting friends. I can't love my friends in this way, for a host of religious, logistical, moral, legal, practical, etc. reasons. How can you be satisfied with less once you learn what's possible? But isn't that the wrong question - more people doesn't mean more of this kind of love.

I think Dante wasn't necessarily fated to experience the terribly sad unrequited love that he did. If he and Beatrice could've shared their lives, who knows. Maybe it would have grown into something better and...and there'd be no seminal works of Italian literature to dissect centuries later.

We don't write about real love. I don't know why that is. Maybe there's just so much less time for it. My life is busy.

Fortunately, there are reems and reems written about real friendship, as well as seven seasons of My Little Pony exploring related themes. I've watched them all with my daughters.

Another fortunately: I'm friendable, ie I can probably hope to eventually learn this from experience. It is not easy, natural, or at all stress-free for me. But it is fun and brings me joy, so it seems to be worth the effort.

Bittersweet Pill

Sprint

You know what I hate? I hate working out. It's no fun at all. It's good AFTER. I like the effects of it. I hate doing it. I'd rather do anything else, including canning. Including reading reviews of highlighters on Amazon. Including talking about Pokemon with a 7 and 8 year old. I simply really don't enjoy working out. And I probably never will.

I'm not even that bad at it. I'm just average. But it's mostly unenjoyable because it's so boring.

Sprint.

I actually prefer doing math problems. Even when I get something muddled in the arithmetic and get a wrong answer and feel totally stupid. I prefer that to this. By a lot.

Some people have exercise as a hobby. It's an enjoyable activity that they relish and look forward to doing. Me? I'm bribing myself with sketching out my grouchy thoughts on my phone as I alternate sprints and walking.

So much of exercise science is so...opaque. I have no idea who to trust. Too many authorities. Exactly like nutrition science.

Sprint.

All through high school I did dance and running. I was average but a bit towards the scale of "better" as a runner.

I was an excellent dancer.

But dancing is about both art and craft. It's not about competition, except with yourself. It's not about technique, at least not entirely. It's really athletic. It's really hard. It's about emotions. It's fun.

Not the most fun, but still.

Sprint.

The most fun? That'd be either sitting or walking somewhere gloriously beautiful and picturesque with a dear friend, talking with (or without) words.

A close second: sitting at a computer, some kind of portal into the minds and thoughts of friends, and carrying out like, five or six simultaneous chats. Or just one, if it's important enough to me.

Sprint.

Really, that was more like a glop. I didn't sprint.

Successfully forcing my body to obey the will of my brain. That's the challenge. It comes with a LOT of self loathing and criticism. That feels horrible. "You suck, Kate." "You should've been able to do that, Kate." I'm so sick of those feelings. They hurt worse than being out of shape.

Not really. But...but almost. And maybe it's true in the moment.

Sprint.

I can quite easily muster up the strength/courage/fortitude/energy to sprint at a project.

This month I intend to finish my first round of edits on "the book." This project that's been looming in the background of my life ever since 2016. It's so... it's just so itchy to be done. Today I reached the halfway mark of my edits, perhaps even surpassed it. I'm excited to be done. I need to finish before May because...

Sprint.

... Because once my kids are done with school, sionara free time. It will be rush here, rush there, pool time, GRE study time, taking care of kids time - perhaps I'll be able to manage some Czech learning time somewhere in there?

Sigh. I still am putting off deciding how to manage that. I don't know how to do it, so I just procrastinate. This is a fairly tried and true strategy from my toolbox. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's even the right choice. I'm not sure if such is the case right now. We will see.

Sprint.

Just two more sprints to go. Surely I can manage that.

I'm very anxious about grad school. I wonder how the prerequisites work. How strict are they? And how will I manage to finish this program in four years - double the time of a normal degree - while taking care of five children? What will I sacrifice? What will I need to cut? Or is that inevitable? Can I simply move on to the next set of projects? If I get bored, the stakes are much higher.

Sprint.

Shin splints? That's so unfair. Ugh.

I bought the textbook for sociolinguistics. I think it is likely to be one of the earlier courses I take. It's required. The textbook has the words "digital Englishes" in it. How strange and interesting.

I won't be able to read ahead for the subsequent classes. At least not much.

I wish I had taken a stats class. I never took a single solitary college level math class. I don't even know how they are taught.

Jog.

That was the last lap.

I have to work out and a mere walk doesn't cut it. For about two weeks I've failed to get an almost daily dose of sweat. In the past week I've noticed my hands inadvertently shaking. It's not random. It's when I'm worried about something. When I'm thinking a lot about my plans for the future, sometimes not even the far distant future. Just "what are the things that need to get done this week, today, next?" I find myself shaking and very tense. I've noticed (and this is definitely TMI) constipation and racing thoughts. Basically, all the typical hallmarks of how I experience anxiety.

Exercise is a preventative drug.

A bitter pill to swallow.

A time sucking bitter pill.

But it's worth it, especially now that my endorphins are catching up. Ahh. Feels nice. Don't smell me, though.