The Sneaky Nature of Fandoms

I was pondering last night on the natures of fandoms (I use the word in a loose context, BTW, I mean anything you can be a fan of, not just nerd things). In particular, I was thinking about how the love of something can be either immediate, or come up out of the blue and over time. Or how you can be a fan of something for a long time, and never really understand exactly what it is you're a fan of. I have a few examples.


My fandom I have been indulging this week is Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, y'all know what I'm talking about. There are not enough flattering words for those movies. This was a fandom that was immediate, it took no time at all, sitting in the movie theater that first time, to just fall in love with everything about it. I loved the story, I loved the costumes and sets, and more than anything, I LOVED the characters. Captain Jack Sparrow in particular. Like a lot of people, in the wake of Lord of the Rings, I had gone to the movie primarily interested in seeing Orlando Bloom, since he'd pulled off the whole hot Elf thing so well.

And I left that theater with a raging crush on Johnny Depp.

Who can blame me? Most everyone else did the same thing. This was the movie that skyrocketed Johnny Depp to superstardom, and for good reason. He is my favorite actor, and he deserves it. There is not a role that this man cannot play. Trust me, I've seen a lot of his work. He is brilliant.

So, anyway, there's my example of a fandom that was immediate. An instant love of the Pirates world and everything in it. My next example, the sneaky fandom that pops up out of the blue, is another Hollywood alum.


Robert Downey Jr. I'm fairly sure I have mentioned once or twice my . . . slight obsession with this man before. And it's an obsession that truly came out of nowhere. I had seen Iron Man before, and I liked it. I had seen other movies with RDJ before, specifically Sherlock Holmes, and while I liked them, it wasn't anywhere near a fandom level. Just a standard, "Oh, this is a good movie, he's a good actor" kind of thing. I think I was watching Jude Law while watching Sherlock Holmes more than I watched Robert Downey Jr.

But then, one night my husband and I decided to watch Iron Man again, and . . . the fandom was born. I fell in love.

Something about that arrogant, funny, quick-witted character had me glued to the screen in a way I hadn't been the first time I watched it. I was utterly enthralled. And then, I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but either way they happened in quick succession. I watched Sherlock Holmes again. And it was clear that it was not just Tony Stark who had stolen my heart. It was the incredibly gifted actor playing the role.

Don't get me wrong, I adore the character of Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes as well, but my heart truly belongs to RDJ. And the same time as watching Sherlock Holmes, I also made the big, BIG mistake of looking up clips of Robert Downey Jr on YouTube.

I was stuck there for days. I kid you not, I do not exaggerate. Days. Yes, breaks were taken for things like eating, mothering, sleeping, etc., but I did not do any other personal time activities other than watch clips of that man for DAYS. Hours upon hours upon hours, and one stint even lasted 8 hours after I put Sammy to bed! I'm not kidding! I voraciously pounced upon every video I could find that had RDJ in it. I saw clips from movies, I saw dozens of interviews, I saw behind the scenes featurettes, I saw everything. I can even tell you which video it was when I absolutely fell in love with him, the man, not the characters.

This one.

Again, not kidding. I've seen that clip probably 20 times now. I have it memorized. Shut up. I can feel you laughing.

Anyway, that spawned an outrageous need to watch every movie RDJ had ever been in (he and Johnny Depp are similar in that they can play ANY role), know about his life (that was a party, let me tell you), and I also discovered that he is a musician. A d*mn good one. I hadn't even known it, but he had even released an album.

Which I downloaded. And listen to frequently. And sing along, because I have all those memorized too. (Side note: I kind of melted a little bit when I heard his voice. Like, into a puddle of gelatinous goo on the floor because it had been awhile since I had heard something so seductive and sexy as that husky, gorgeous voice.) Here's a link to one of my favorites songs of his, if you wanna give it a listen.

Now, I want to make sure we're clear that I'm not stalking the man, or that I'm a creeper. I've purposely kept myself from going THAT far. (I don't live in Hollywood anyway, so it's not feasible.) I know what year he was born, but not what day, and I know about his family, but not intimate details. And I think that Robert and his wife, Susan, are the most adorable couple in the world.

Their love story is just ridiculously cute. (Yes, I watched that interview. And that one. And that one . . . )

So, yeah. Fandom that inexplicably became a fandom despite having been exposed to it before. And, I'll have you know, this is the fandom I am currently most known for. If my friends have a RDJ related question, guess who they ask . . . And I usually know the answer.

This next one is the fandom where I was a fan for years, and didn't even know it. And this one goes to the King of Rock and Roll.

Elvis.

Look at that face. Who doesn't love that face?

Anyway, this fandom came about in an interesting way. See, I have inherited most of my music tastes from my parents. When I was little, I was exposed to a big variety of music, since my parents have different tastes. My mom loves country, my dad loves . . . well, he loves a lot of stuff that played when he was growing up. So whenever we were at home or in the car, there was always music going. Country with my mom, an alternative rock station for my dad when he wasn't listening to KSL (news, talking, I hated it), and for four solid years there, we were parked on an oldies station that played music from the 50's through the 70's. Carpenters, Air Supply, the Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel. All of the goodies. Even if I didn't know the words, I knew the tune, and boy, do I have memories associated with all those tunes.

Anyway, while we were in this oldies phase, I heard and loved so many songs, but being a kid, I never bothered to really find out who sang what. I knew the Carpenters by sound, since it was so distinct, but I knew very few others. (For the record, I could also pick out Reba McEntire in a lineup. My mom was very proud.) So I heard Devil in Disguise, Return to Sender, Suspicious Minds, Can't Help Falling in Love, all without knowing that it was Elvis singing those songs. Even Jailhouse Rock didn't tweak in my head that it was Elvis.

And then, many years later while I worked as a librarian and I was putting CD's away one day, I happened to flip over an Elvis CD to look over his songs and lo, to my surprise, I had been a fan of Elvis all those years and never knew it!

Return to Sender and Devil in Disguise were a couple of my favorite songs and I had never known that they were Elvis songs! I gleefully took that CD home, listening with joy to songs that I loved that now had a name to go with a voice. I was pleasantly surprised! No wonder everyone made such a fuss about Elvis, now I knew why!

So Elvis turned out to be one of those fandoms that I'd been participating in all those years, just without knowing exactly what I was a fan of. I didn't mind finding that out, especially when I looked up pictures of the guy and discovered he was even more smoking hot that I had originally known (I'm talking younger Elvis, not horrible hair, jumpsuit Elvis).

I even have a poster, it's on my ceiling right now. Next to a poster of Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.

Robert Downey Jr. in an Avengers poster is on the back of my door, which is another fandom, BTW.


I love fandoms. I love being a fan of things. I love being a nerd in the way that I can have totally unreasonable, irrational love and excitement about something that I find amazing and cool and worth my time. Simon Pegg said it best in this quote, I love it so much;

"Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating."
― Simon Pegg

You are so right, Simon. Being a geek is liberating. Having fandoms is joyful and liberating. Having an unabashed love for something so distant from yourself is a unique kind of freedom. And so, I devote myself to my fandoms. I devote myself to the likes of Captain Jack Sparrow and Johnny Depp, Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr. Elvis. Harry Potter and J.R.R. Tolkein. Julia Quinn and J.R. Ward (romance authors). Narnia and Wonderland. I wholeheartedly express my enthusiastic, over the top, and sometimes childish love for these things that have endeared themselves to me and earned my eternal adoration.

I salute you, fandoms. I'm yours forever.

Now tell me, dear reader . . . share your dirty secret. What is, or are, your fandoms(s)?

A Pantry Worth Crying Over

Have you ever watched a cooking movie like No Reservations or Julie and Julia, sat there for two hours of them making food that looks so good you can almost smell it through the TV? And you end up, at the end of the movie, so hungry that you would eat just about anything, even if it didn't look like that? So you go to your pantry or fridge, determined to find something even marginally awesome to eat. You open up the door. And want to cry.



Let us have a moment of silence for that horrible, horrible feeling.

*Sighs*

Ok, everyone done? Do you need another moment? No? Ok, moving on.

For anyone who didn't follow, the reason we are all crying and having a moment of silence is because the contents of our pantries and fridges . . . in no way resembles the kind of pantry or fridge you need to reproduce anything even slightly similar to what you just watched Amy Adams eat. Don't even get me started on having the patience to even give it a decent attempt, given ideal ingredients and kitchen accouterments.

This is just so not fair. And it has gotten to the point that I don't even watch Julie and Julia anymore unless I am prepared with something good to eat afterwards! Because I know what will happen, and I can't endure that heartbreak!

Or something like browning butter. Excuse me? I am already dragging out a mixer, half a dozen measuring cups and spoons, whisks and spatulas and spoons and EVERY OTHER DISH IN THE KITCHEN, but now you also want me to get out a pan, and painstakingly melt and saute butter in there until it is brown but not burned? Are you out of your freaking mind?! Come on, I am the kind of girl that reads a recipe, gets to the end and says, "Well, THAT'S not going to happen," and then either disregards it altogether or cuts corners like I'm late to work. Honestly. There is not way I'm going to sift those dry ingredients. The best you're going to get is I'm going to dump them all in a bowl together and give them a good stir with a whisk.

You know what needs to exist? A grocery store that will deliver 24/7. So that when people like me decide to watch a food movie at eleven at night, we actually have an option available when our mouths are watering and we're starving. "Yes, I need to order one of your meals from the freezer section. I don't care, something that looks even remotely similar to what Catherine Zeta-Jones just made that can be ready to eat in ten minutes." Such a place could make a killing, I'm telling you.

Come to think of it, y'know what would be even better? A magic fridge. "Fridge, I want chicken parmesan." *Ding!* "Ooh, yummy!"

"Fridge, I want Girl Scout cookies." *Ding!* *Munch*

"Fridge, I want a half-naked male model." *Error!* "Aww..."

Anyway . . .

This is a serious problem, people. These beautiful food movies and sadly lacking fridges are contributing to food depression all over the world! Something must be done! Raise awareness! Because there are few things in this world sadder than a fridge, a cupboard, or a pantry worth crying over.

Sleeping Beauty, Bronchitis, and Disney Magic

So, my little five year old Sammy and I have been sick in bed (literally) for the past few days with bronchitis. It has . . . not been fun. At all. But at least one good thing has come of it. Sleeping Beauty. I shall explain.


You know how us as humans tend to fixate on things? For example, I've been fixated on Robert Downey Jr. for the longest time now, my sister in law has been fixated on Stargate (the AMAZING TV series), etc. Well, Sammy has been fixating on Sleeping Beauty. She has probably watched this movie 20 times this weekend alone. We're working on the fourth time through just today, and it's not even dinnertime yet. We've also watched special features, and done the Sleeping Beauty Castle virtual tour three times in a row.

Well, while the two of us are sitting in bed, sniffling and hacking and dabbing at watery eyes and trying to breathe past the enormous invisible elephants on our chests, I've been having Sleeping Beauty related epiphanies left and right. Seriously. I can't even Facebook them all, otherwise people would start questioning my Nyquil intake. (For the record, none. I don't do medicine I have to drink, and gel capsules make me gag just at the sight of them. See, my throat is seizing just thinking about them. *Gag*) So, in order to share these priceless epiphanies with the world, hello pretty blog! Hold onto your hats, people. It's about to get Disney all up in here.

First off, a rant. I know, odd thing to start with, but we're going with it anyway. And I promise, this all ties in at the end, bear with me. It's been a big trend recently to redo classic fairytales into these big, grand, live action adventures. Snow White has been done twice, Hansel and Gretel inherited Jeremy Renner and some witches, Alice in Wonderland got the Tim Burton treatment a few years ago, Red Riding Hood grew up and fell in love with a werewolf. Now, on my part, I've pretty much been a big fan of these. Mirror Mirror: wacky, but I loved it. Julia Roberts was GENIUS. Alice in Wonderland is a favorite, Johnny Depp has yet to find a role he can't do. Red Riding Hood appealed in the most bizarre way, since I'm not a big fan of the creepy things.


However . . . It all fell apart when we put the hot factor of Chris Hemsworth, the acting prowess of Charlize Theron, and the fantastic story of Snow White, with . . . Kristen Stewart. We gave a girl with as much expression as a brick wall the role of the fairest in the land. No. As of yet, not even the lure of Chris Hemsworth's muscles and Charlize Theron as the wicked queen have convinced me to sit through two hours of snooze on the part of director-screwing, Stony-Faced Stewart. I can't do it.

Which brings me to one of the next live-action fairytale interpretations set to hit the scenes, rumored to give us the backstory of one of the most famous villains in history, Maleficent (see, told you this would tie in). I'm stoked for this. As stoked as I was for Snow White and the Huntsman before I found out about that the fairest of them all was really going to be the least expressive of them all. I mean, come on! This is going to be awesome. The actresses they are picking to play these evil queens is genius. Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie, these women are top of the totem pole. Watching them apply their own particular talents to such huge, fantastic characters is or is going to be AMAZING.


And while we're waiting anxiously for the summer of 2014 to find out what the good goshdang happened to muck up Maleficent's life, I have a theory: She and King Stefan have a history. I'm not sure what kind, but there has to be something going on there. Why else would Maleficent just randomly show up at the royal baby shower and be uber-pissed about not having been invited? It's a baby shower, not like you're missing much, just oohing and ahhing over this season's cutest in haute for baby.

Unless . . . it's your ex's baby with his wife he left you for. In that case, I can see being a bit miffed. Especially when the other woman has the gall to actually talk to you when you crash the party, putting on the innocent act and asking if you're not offended. If that's the case, they kinda asked for it. Yeah people, this is where my brain goes. I have a good time.

So, Maleficent is pissed, plants an evil curse on (her ex's?) baby, and disappears in a cloud of green smoke, leaving everyone's favorite good fairy, Merryweather, to unsnarl this mess. I have one question . . .

WHAT WAS MERRYWEATHER GOING TO GIVE THE PRINCESS BEFORE ALL THAT HAPPENED?! Seriously, this has been bothering me for years. The kid already has beauty and song, which seems like a pretty good deal to me, so what could the third gift have been that would have been equal to those gifts already given? Mysterious. But, as before, I have a theory. I would bet that Merryweather, being the adorable thing she is, was either going to give Aurora the gift of happiness or love. Because those are the kinds of things the spunky, cheeky fairy would value. And yet, despite this happy theory I have formed, I'm still going to drive myself nuts every time I see this movie. Which will probably be another two or three times before bedtime, if the day continues as it has been.


Since we're on the topic of Merryweather, that brings me nicely to my next thing. I have decided that dressing up as one of the fairies for Halloween would be totally awesome! I totally have the body type for it, short and round. And I could totally make that hat, I have some pretty mad hat skills (ask me about my Mad Hatter top hat). And, since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are as big of Disney fans as I am, we could totally do a trio of all three!

Then my daughter threw in her two cents, and I was surprised. Sammy wants to be the green fairy, Fauna, Grandma can be Merryweather, sister-in-law can be Flora, our dog can be the dragon Maleficent, I can be Sleeping Beauty, and Daddy can be the prince. Of course I was delighted to be the princess in this scenario, so I graciously accepted. The temptation to do a dress that is splattered pink and blue is irresistible. If I am being Princess Aurora this Halloween, I am so doing that.

Ok peeps, a couple of quick tidbits of trivia will wrap this thing up, so here we go (I'm a BIG trivia fan, deal with it). The voice of Maleficent = Same woman who voiced the stepmother, Lady Tremaine, in Cinderella! The sound of the dragon snapping its jaws = Castanets! And this last one is my favorite: when Maleficent is taunting Prince Phillip in the prison in the Forbidden Mountain fortress, and his subsequent daring escape, all of that was originally meant to go to Prince Ferdinand in Snow White. The reason it didn't? When Snow White was being done, Walt Disney didn't think his animators could do a convincing enough human male (look at that picture, he had a point), so it was scrapped and put in Sleeping Beauty years later instead! Cool, huh?! Told ya, trivia nerd over here. I love this stuff.


You wanna know the best thing about this movie, and even all Disney movies in general, especially the classics? That they never stop being as awesome as the were the first time you saw them. I still get that thrill of romance when Prince Phillip starts dancing with Briar Rose, waltzing through the forest. I still laugh in delight as Flora and Merryweather bicker back and forth while the fairies are all preparing for the birthday party. I still feel that deep sense of foreboding and fear as Maleficent appears in the fireplace and lures Aurora away up the tower to the tune of that creepy music. It's magic. Disney magic. And even when I'm old and gray, looking far more like a Fairy Godmother than a princess, I will still see with wondering eyes everything that those movies have to offer.


P.S. Have you ever noticed that the horses in Disney movie are the most hysterical, outrageous creatures! The attitude! It's fabulous!

The Squash I Squashed

I have learned sooo many new things today! One of them being that I really find pulling hair out of my tub drain distasteful. And my daughter always looks cute in a short bob (yes, she cut her hair again). The most . . . entertaining, perhaps, thing I have learned is that a jack-o-lantern is probably the closest I think I'll get to a whole, raw squash again.

Here's why:

Last week at Sammy's preschool, they had a whole passel of butternut squashes that they were giving away. Feeling slightly adventurous, as I get sometimes, I grabbed one. I figured, hey, if I can't figure out how to cook the thing, we can always paint it for Halloween decor, right?

It'd been sitting on the counter since then, and I've been contemplating it. I looked up a few recipes on Google, and found everything from soup to roasted squash to pureed squash. Lots of options. Now, I know that most squashes are naturally quite sweet. Hello, pumpkin pie anyone? They didn't arrive at that delectable treat without some kind of suggestion in the right direction. So I'm figuring that most of this squash will probably be going towards some kind of sweet dish. Worst case scenario, we have butternut pie, a la imitation pumpkin! Which, really, how is that a bad thing? And the rest of it can go towards a savory dish, say, a halved recipe of soup since I'm the only one that will eat this stuff anyway!

I've been meaning to cut the sucker up and get cooking since Saturday, however, I've also been battling a cold that has been flirting with me for over a week and settled in for a nice, long-term relationship around Friday. Suckage. Big time. So, poor squash just sat on the counter, waiting to hear its fate. And that cold, yeah, still hanging around. I've packed its luggage and put it outside, even left an eviction notice, but it's not taking the hint.

Anyway, I picked up the squash this afternoon while dinner was baking, and I didn't even have a chance to decide what to do with it before I felt a squishy, wet soft spot on it. Well, obviously, if this squash is going to start going bad, I need to do something about it pronto. And painting it to look like a cutesy-pootsie ghoulie is out of the question now.

So . . . the real question is . . . what the devil do I do with the thing?! I start looking around online. And it seems like every recipe I find calls for already cooked squash. And the most common way to do that? Cut it in half and bake it in the oven for a couple hours.

Er, problem there. Because, um, I kind of already went Sweeney Todd on the thing, and it it now in three pieces, and sans the whole part that was soft. Not exactly perfect roasting material now, huh? So I'm just gonna have to find a different way to cook it! Which brings us to recipes, because there is no easily accessible alternative out there for what to do with three big pieces of butternut squash.

I did, however, find a unanimous agreement that the squash needs to be peeled and cubed. Ok, peeled. Peeling a squash. Zucchini is easy peasy lemon squeezy, that stuff has a thin peel like a cucumber. However, I have never tried to peel a pumpkin, and that was pretty much what I was lookin' at right then. So, for kicks, I pull out a vegetable peeler like it says.

I would have been there until December, I kid you not. Because not only is it practically impossible to peel a concave-shaped vegetable, but I would need to go over this thing with my dinky little potato peeler about three times to get through to the lovely orange stuff underneath the tan skin and pale stuff under it. Think orange, here. No that texture, but that idea. You take a peeler to an orange, what do you get? That white stuff underneath that you don't wanna eat. Same concept, pale yellow flesh under the tan skin that I don't wanna eat. So, peeler is a no-go.

Next option, I'm gonna have to just cut the skin off with a knife. So, which knife. Let's play a game! You bring me a knife that you think would peel a pumpkin, and I'll tell you if it'll work. And do not even think about touching that butter knife, because I will snigger at you. Put the paring knife back. Fillet knife? Don't be funny. Long skinny knife. Ha. Butcher knife, no. You will cut off your finger before you skin a butternut, because a knife that big will be a joke.

Ok, I'll tell you. You want a knife about 6 inches long, half the blade width of a butcher knife. We have two at my house, and they're my favorite, especially because I sharpen them before each use. I tried the fillet knife, and started laughing because I got 3 inches into a cut and realized that this was a fail of epic proportions because have you every tried to cut a jack-o-lantern with a fillet knife? Yeah, it's like trying to carve an apple with a spaghetti noodle. You need a big, sturdy bad boy to cut into a super-firm thing like a squash. You need a slightly flexible, equally sturdy smaller bad boy to PEEL a squash.

Now, I finally got started peeling this thing. It was not pretty, to say the least, my squash looked more like an abstract sculpture than a vegetable (fruit? What category would this be in?) by the time I was done with it. By this point, I was sighing a sigh of relief, and then hurdling onto my next project in between checking on my dinner and two pots on the stove (dinner is baking and cooking, remember?). Now I need to cut this puppy up!

This worked pretty well, and for this job I used the biggest baddest knife I had, a super-long butcher knife. Butternuts are tough suckers, and it took a little muscle to get through the big pieces, but after that cubing the small stuff was nothing. Wanna know what I did next?

Um, sorta nothing. I put them in a ziploc bag, and now, some five hours later, they're still there. Sitting on the counter. Waiting. I don't know what to do with it! I checked for how to store the stuff, but I got nothing for raw, cubed squash! Don't refrigerate was a common one, but that was for WHOLE squash. Apparently the cold does bad things for the flavor. But letting a skinned, cubed squash out all night might be bad, right? Yes? No? I don't know!

So here I sit, polishing off the leftovers of some truly fabulous chicken and some cold french toast from the day before, dipped in powdered sugar. A worthy dinner, I assure you. But I'm still bothered by the incredible conundrum that is THAT STUPID SQUASH! Because it's after 11 at night. And most of these recipes I'm looking over take a minimum of an hour to make! I really don't want to be up until nearly one in the morning, but what do I do with my baggie of squash in the meantime? I'm so stymied.

I guess . . . I'll stick it in the fridge. And then, in the morning when I take Sammy to school, I'll take it out. That can't do it TOO much damage, can it? I have no idea. *Frustration*

Anyway . . . I'm going now. I'm going to go stare at that cubed squash in a most cheerful shade of orange, and I'm going to get some information out of it if kills me. And, worst case scenario . . . I'll have a go at that butternut pie!

How the Baby Grew Up

I had another one of those moments a minute ago when I think about my daughter and kind of . . . sit there in awe and shock and completely unadulterated terror for a second about how fast things are changing. Thankfully these moments don't happen too frequently, or I'd be a basketcase, but I just had one. Allow me to explain . . .

So, Sammy starts preschool in one week. I know. A week ago she was still wearing toddler size clothes that come from the baby section, and then this week suddenly she knows her alphabet, is reading the letters off the label on the ketchup bottle, and we have to buy her clothes from the little girl section at the store.

Seriously. She picked an absolutely hideous pink and white zebra striped jumper to wear for her first day of school. I wanted the light pink, yellow, and orange plaid, or the cute striped one of the same color scheme, or the blue shirt and pant set with little chalk drawn hearts in different colors. But no. She wants the zebra stripes. Because she loves zebras. And it hasn't occurred to my nearly 5 year old that zebra stripes in preschool is a bit much. It doesn't help that I have exactly one bra that is anything other than boring and it happens to be zebra stripes (only fun one they had), which makes it the default when Sammy picks out my bra for me (don't ask how this got started, I still don't know).

Anyway, where were we? Oh, me freaking out a little that my baby is growing up. See, I can kind of figure out how this is catching me weird. It's because up until now, for Sammy's whole life, she's always been at home. She hasn't had daycare or anything like that to go away every day for, no schedule to meet. She was still a baby, a toddler, something other than a little girl in school.

But now . . . this is the precipice of a completely different time in her life. From now on, my baby is a student, a school kid, and for the next 14 years of her life, she will be going to school 9 months of the year. No, it's not like she's leaving home to go to a boarding school on the East Coast. But it's weird. Good and bad weird. Good because the child is driving me absolutely nuts, increasingly so over the last year or so. I think a nice 4 hour break 4 days a week sounds DIVINE.

But it's also bad, because . . . she just won't be my baby anymore. She is officially and irrevocably out of her toddler stage. And yeah, she hasn't been a toddler for something like 2 years now, but she's still kind of been in that group in my head. She's still been the baby. And now . . . nope. Not anymore. She is a grown up little girl who is going to school. And in two years, she starts elementary school, first grade, full time school. Which might be another big change, I don't know. I just know that this one, this leap from baby to preschooler, is a weird thing for me.

She is going to have so much fun. She's going to get to interact and play with a bunch of little kids her own age. She's going to suck up information and learning so fast, and I know she's going to love it. She'll have an absolute ball! And I'm sure she'll make new friends, and get to love her teachers, and I think she's just going to be the type of kid that loves school. I'm really excited for her.

But I sure will miss my baby. She'll always be my baby, in a lot of ways, but she's past that age now where she's still my toddler running around the house with jingle bells on her shoes so I can find her. She's a big girl. And her life is about to change in a major way. And so is mine.

I'm looking forward to making the journey with her. And at the same time, already missing my baby.

Blood-Curdling Fear

I was thinking about something the other night, something intriguing and terrifying all at the same time. This is kind of a two parter. One is deepest fears. The things that you, as a person, are absolutely terrified of. I'm not talking about jumping when you see a grass snake slither across the yard or avoiding horror movies because they kinda freak you out. I'm talking bone-deep, lung-constricting, literally shoots terror through your soul kind of fear. The second part was, oddly enough, death. I shall attempt to explain how these two are intertwined. And how they have nothing to do at all with that picture.

One of my deepest fears, and it is a recent one, is that I will die through some act of stupidity on my part, and in the seconds before I die horribly, I will know it is my fault and it could have been avoided. As I'm pitching off a cliff or a building because I wore unwise and unstable shoes, or leaned over too far to look. As I'm about to rear-end a semi and see God up close and personal because I took my eyes off the road for a second to skip a song on my CD. I have loads of these, the probable, the unlikely, the downright unfathomable, all things that end in my immediate demise or fatal injuring, things that could have been prevented.

I don't know why this scares me so much. I really don't. But it does. Just having that one crystal clear moment of "hindsight is a b*tch" before my life ends and I'm standing on the other side, unprepared and in an absolute panic about what just happened.

I have a theory as to why this terrifies me like it does. I have been the lucky winner of two near-death experiences, and a whole host of other experiences that shaved right close to near-death, but those are closer to the accident category and not the near-death one.

When I was 10, I nearly drowned trying to cross a river with my friend. This culminated with me, unconscious, hanging onto a log by no means that logic, reason, or science can explain, floating like a windsock in the water while hypothermia nearly set in. After a terrifying ride in an ambulance and night in the hospital, I was sent home, but it was a near miss. While I was in that water, when I was still conscious and flailing, trying to get my head above water long enough to suck in a breath of air and yell, I had one of those "life flashing before your eyes" kind of things. I pictured my family and, oddly enough, our pet. The whole time, from when my feet first started slipping on the slick rocks to when I finally fell unconscious, all I could think about was, "Why did we do this? Why did we try to cross the river? Why didn't we just go around?"

My second near-death experience isn't near as dramatic, but it easily could have been. When I was 14, I climbed a tree in my grandparent's yard, and 25 or so feet up, put my weight on a dead branch. It broke. I remember that I managed to grab ahold of a branch above me, and this is where I'm not sure what happened. I don't know if I slipped or if I just let go. Maybe part of my brain overrode the other part, and somehow knew that I wouldn't be able to hold on anyway. I honestly don't know.

Anyway, I fell, and escaped the incident with a broken bone in my foot and scratches on my hands and stomach from sliding down the trunk. I barely missed bashing my head open on several large branches on the way down, and although I wore a boot for the next three months for my foot and had one slightly panic-driven trip to the ER, it wasn't that big a deal.

I do remember thinking, on that split-second trip to the ground, "Why did I climb this tree? Why did I climb so high?" What was I thinking?" To find myself on the ground, alive, and certainly shaken up a second later was a relief. But I've had an intensified fear of heights ever since.

Other than these, I've been in several (at least 6) car accidents, been very near a lightning strike, had an emergency c-section with my daughter, and most recently ended up in the hospital with a very badly failed miscarriage that people tell me would have killed me if my sister-in-law hadn't taken me to the ER when she did. You might say I've led a very adventurous life.

I think it is from these experiences that I find myself in a panic when considering all the ways natural human folly and stupidity could lead to my death, and that undetermined amount of time at the end to look back and know exactly where I went wrong and pulled something stupid. It must mean that I am unprepared for death, and I know that in most ways, I am. I am not morally or spiritually ready for death in any way. Death itself does not scare me. The actual separation of spirit from body is not something I fear. It is the pain beforehand, and the judgement afterward that have me scared spitless.

I have other things like this that terrify me. Pain is one of them. I can handle normal pain, although I DO NOT like it. Headaches, hangnails, cramps, that sort of thing. I've even come through two surgeries and the pain both before and after. But I don't do extreme pain. Of the few times in my life that I have experienced this kind of pain, I know for sure that torture isn't for me. They wouldn't even have to get out the thumbscrews before I'd be spilling everything.

The other is the concept of eternity. I'm a Mormon, so eternity is something that is real and definite for me, but it sure scares me. I mean . . . eternity. Time without end. So after the end of the world as we know it and all that goes about, after all the things happen that I've learned about my whole life . . . then what? I'll tell you this, I have some theories about what happens next, and I don't like the one that seems most likely. Terrifying idea, that. But even if, after this life, we will live in a state of eternal bliss . . . what if I get bored? Seriously, ETERNITY. I can't even comprehend that, it's too much, it's too big.

I know that I will be able to keep myself busy for awhile. I want to learn everything. I want to learn every language of this world and be able to speak it fluently. I want to go back to the beginning of the world and watch it all. I want to know all the mysteries, all the stories, all the histories, I want to be able to see it all. I want to see the rise and fall of Rome, the life of Cleopatra, what happened with the dinosaurs, how mankind spread across the globe, what kind of a personality Alexander the Great had, what it would have been like to have lived in Turn of the Century America. What really happened with all the scandals that rocked the world. What happened to Amelia Earhart. What's the deal with aliens? I want to learn everything. And I want to learn how to do everything do. Every instrument. How to fix cars. How to program a computer. The exact process that would go into making a whole world.

But eventually there will be an end to the things that I could learn and learn to do. And I worry that someday, in the far off reaches of eternity, and I will maybe just want to peacefully cease to exist.

This is deep stuff, huh? I know. I get way up in my head sometimes. That's probably why I don't act so serious the rest of the time, because my forays into the deep stuff always send me sprinting away post haste as soon as I've adequately frightened myself. Sometimes I like to contemplate the universe, the sheer size and composition of it, and I'm usually a brain-fried puddle after those little exercises.

Deepest fears. The real ones. Do share with me, dear reader, your deepest fears. I am intrigued. The things that terrify me might seem silly to you, so tell me something about yourself. What leaves you awake at night, alone in your bed, too afraid to close your eyes because your mind is too much for your matter?

The Incredible Ineptness of Me

*Drums fingers on laptop* This is a problem. I am officially deeming myself incapable of knowing how to actually run this blog. Because I just pulled a stupid.

I have, in the whole time writing this blog, and my other one, I have gotten 4 comments. Yes, four. Just four. For two blogs, written over almost two years, I think.

And do you know what I just did? I deleted a comment I just got recently. It popped up in my comments box and I was SO EXCITED! And you know what was even better? It was from someone I don't even know! Two of my comments have been from my sister-in-law, which were awesome, but hardly counted since I know her! I live with her, actually, so she usually yells her comments through the wall or if we're feeling particularly lazy, she texts or IM's me.

But this comment was from a stranger! And it was an awesome comment, about my Superhero post, and I even replied to it! And now I feel like such an idiot because I was stupid and deleted it! I figured that it was some kind of an alert, that I could delete the alert and keep my "comments inbox" looking all pristine and lonely. No. That's not the case. *Slams head against wall*

I need lessons. I need someone to explain things to me! Facebook and Pinterest I was able to figure out just fine, but for some reason I cannot get the hang of this blog site! It's driving me nuts! How am I ever going to get followers to see how awesome and funny I am (oh please, I am practically leaking sarcasm right now, don't look at me like that) if they think I'm deleting their comments on purpose! *Wails*

Anyway . . . I'm still feeling retarded. Betcha couldn't tell. I keep wracking my brain, trying to think of a way to undelete comments, since I've apparently been deleting them after I read and squee about them.

Apologies, my dears. We are talking about a very incompetent and inept person, here. I am the girl that still does not know how to turn the wipers off in her car, so I guess it is to be expected that I managed to foul up a blog. I just expected this to be a little more, I dunno, easy?

*Le sigh* Apparently not. Random stranger that left a comment on my Superhero post about your power being teleportation, I love you! I replied, I really did!

I suck.