Picture print by currier & ives

28 November 2008

I love Karen Carpenter. She is the voice of Christmas. In fact, it's not Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving when Mom turns on the Carpenters. I hear, like herald angels announcing the season, those first notes: "It cayme upon a midnight cleeer!" And thus the season is ushered in, safely after we have Given Thanks.

This year though, I had a change of heart and Christmas began a little early.

Last weekend Bryan and I stopped by SmartCookie for some dessert. It was still days before Thanksgiving, but ice cream shops all over Provo were already breaking out the eggnog and peppermint flavors. Of course, I would never pick a Christmas flavor before the official inauguration of the season, but something suddenly over came me and I heard myself asking for "two gingersnaps with peppermint, please."

What? Blasphemy!

The girl handed me the ice cream sandwich, and for a moment I stood stunned by my sudden rebellion against all that is holly and ivy.

But gingersnaps are my favorite, and the peppermint smelled so much like childhood...

One taste was all it took and I became a forever-changed woman!

"This tastes just like Christmas!"

By the time we climbed into the car and cranked up the Christmas carols (I love Karen Carpenter!), I couldn't quite remember why I had whined for all these years about pre-Turkeyday Yuletide Joy!

Moral of the story: I love Karen Carpenter. Did I mention that?

I am thankful for the scientific discoveries of pavlov

24 November 2008

I didn't really consider the implications of a vegetarian Thanksgiving until Jacob mentioned cooking up his 20lb turkey. And then I started salivating.

What is thanksgiving without that crispy skin which clings to the sweet, flaky flesh of a basted and stuffed bird? Without gravy or liver? This is moral dilemma to a new extreme.

And, oh! the Friday Sandwiches, with all the leftovers spread and piled between two thick bread slices.

Thanksgiving is flag-football with the Copes and Grandma's orange rolls; it's fold-out tables borrowed from the church and that yam dish my mommy makes. But never has November's 4th Thursday been a real celebration without a dead, plucked and roasted bird.

hmm. Tofurkey?

Appeal

17 November 2008

The Meringue House
Provo, UT 84604



November 2008

Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon St.
Oxford OX2 6DP

To Whom it May Concern:

I am generally a prescriptivist grammarian, though I recognize the merits of the descriptivist school; I believe it is the tradition of our language that gives authority to English teachers and editors. So it is you, the prescribers of our language, to whom I apply.

You recognize the manifold responsibilities of the English language to communicate not simply in strings of well-defined but ill-fitting words, but rather through the art of connotation and well-crafted syntax. For example, admonitions such as “have a heart” or “look sharp” are nonsense if understood literally, but said thus, these idioms mean more than their component parts. Even more so, compound words play on the unity of their form: sunshine- a single unit of verb and its subject, or together, or themselves. The form of each highlights the intrinsic unity of the two-words-made-one and so speaks more than each word might alone.

And so I have reached the substance of my appeal: it seems most logical that eachother, as a compound word, be added to the dictionary. Standing separate each and other cannot convey the unity necessary as two friends hug eachother, or two lovers clasp eachother’s hands. I ask you to take this suggestion under serious consideration, recognizing your solemn responsibility to protect and nurture the purity and correctness of our English Language.

Communication is the stuff of our souls given a common voice, and our written language ought to reflect the depth of these souls.

Sincerely,




a girl

The ovid-mcfarlane test

08 November 2008

Part I

Please take out your copybooks. On my mark, you will be given ten (10) minutes to unscramble the following words. There may be more than one correct answer for some words. Please try to find at least one correct answer for each scrambled word.

After the ten (10) minutes, please answer the questions in Part II.

Go.



1.rapiuoh

2.iieergfl

3.hiacd

4.naalct

5.iinnarcad

6.ynnfet

7.ttyoban

8.taeynsrc

Stop.


Part II

What is your age?
What is your gender?
What level of education have you attained?

How many questions in Part I did you answer?

How many questions in Part I do you think you answered correctly?

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being hardly and 10 being very, how would you rate the difficulty of the above exercise?

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being poorest and 10 being excellentest, how would you rate your performance on the above exercise?

Do you consider yourself a narcissist?… Ok, they don’t ask this question. But they ask a whole stream of questions to see if you are, i.e. On a scale of 1-10, how cool are you?

Stop writing now.

Please hand in your copybooks to your teacher, or head of class.

Your answer sheets will be tabulated and then destroyed.
There are minimal risks associated with this study.

...wanna know the answers?

stay tuned.

I'm just messing with you.
I am a psych major.

Answers

(The following is intended for human test subjects who have completed The Ovid-Mcfarlane test and who have sent their results to The Committee for the Study and Repression of Narcissistic Tendencies to be tabulated)

The Ovid-Mcfarlane test is a measure of the reaction of narcissists to an impossible task.

If you scored negative for narcissism (see final question of Part II), you're results are unimportant to us and will be ignored.

If you scored positively for narcissism, then you were probably frustrated with the questions in Part I, and most likely thought you did really well, considering.

You didn't do well, because you can't.

For anyone who is interested, only three of the scrambled sets of letters unscramble to actual words: 2, 5, 8.

This is a test. This is only a test. In case of an actual study this would be followed and proceeded by a tome of legal release and disclosure forms.

Thank you for your participation,

The Committee for the Study and Repression of Narcissistic Tendencies.