In Which I Am Deformed

The day following Little Sister's wedding, I got out of bed and almost fell over. It hurt to stand. It hurt to walk. My ankles throbbed no matter what I did. The Achilles tendons seemed to be swollen and sore.

I figured, "Hey, I spent most of yesterday walking around in high heels. It's only natural that my feet would hurt." Never mind that that was hardly the longest period of time I'd spent on my feet and in heels. It seemed like a good explanation.

Only the pain didn't go away. It would recede for a while, but then it came back, no matter how many times I iced my feet or how much I stayed off them.

And then after that, summer began. Baby Sister left on her mission. Her presence in our family became a series of weekly emails, typed in her trademark frenetic style. Occasionally, something physical would come in the mailbox. Such as:

Seeing Baby Sister off was a good (but sad) part of the summer. It was one of just a handful of tolerable memories.

Things I want to remember about summer 2017: Starting Zombies, Run! with Baby Brother. Watching fireworks in Dr. Godfather's backyard. Conversing with the ward activities co-chair, Flower Child, on our way to and from activities. Dancing with Best Friend Boy to "Can't Stop the Feeling" at stake dances. The smell of the mountains. Marvel movies with my brothers. The multicultural fair at the end of the summer.

Things I want to forget about summer 2017: everything else.

There was the panic of almost having to move, the loss of Steve Whitmire as a Muppeteer, and a host of personal problems. Although I received a priesthood blessing on Mother's Day that helped eliminate most of my migraines, my right eye continued to swell up on and off. And through it all, my ankles were hurting madly.

Shortly before summer's end, I finally went to see a sports med doctor. The doc asked me to stand. He asked me to walk. He asked me to squat.

I did all of those things. I overthought them because under observation, but I did them. Except I couldn't really squat. When asked to squat, I became distressed to realize that I didn't really know how.

The doc then took an ultrasound of my ankles. He then informed me that it was quite concerning for a casual runner in her mid-twenties to have this kind of pain. He then informed me that I was deformed.

He didn't say it like that, but that was the gist. Apparently, my hips and legs are misaligned, which causes me to walk on my feet funny. It also causes the muscles in my hips and upper parts of my legs to be weaker than they should be. When I run, most of the pressure goes to my Achilles tendons. So my Achilles tendons are super swole, but they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be working that hard.

The doc told me to go to physical therapy to strengthen my legs and hips and to stop running for a while.

That did not sit well with me. Do I have time for physical therapy? No. And, with all the other issues I'd gone through in the preceding weeks, I didn't feel like my emotional health could handle not having the release of running.

It was one more trouble in a long line of troubles. I tried to trust in God that everyone would work out, but honestly, I was feeling pretty low.

When I told Baby Sister, here's what she said:

Cutie. I couldn't decide if that made me feel better or worse.

How to Not Be Awkward Around Girls

A blogger I've been reading does "search string" posts. On Blogger, there's a report that shows the search terms that lead readers to the blog. This blogger writes posts about those search terms so that everyone who comes to her blog can find value.

Interestingly, the search term that most often leader people to my blog is "recycling jokes". So there's that. But a recent term that someone used to find my blog is "how not to be awkward around girls".

How to not be awkward around girls? Hmm. Well, if that's what bringing people to my blog, then I suppose I should try to provide an answer.

(It seems fair to assume that the searcher was most likely a teenage boy, so I shall hereafter refer to the searcher as "dude".)

Dude, here's my advice to you (cliché though it may sound): If you're awkward, just be awkward. You're probably not as awkward as you think you are. Even if you are as awkward as you think you are, most girls are not going to be as judgmental of your awkwardness as you are. The right girl might even think it's cute.

Hope that helps!

Wautumn

Well, folks, as of yesterday fall is officially here. (It was also Frodo and Bilbo's birthdays.) Fall has been here unofficially for a while. Over the course of about a week, the temperature nose-dived from 80s, 90s every day to the 50s and 40s.

Not that that's super unusual. In Utah, we have a fine tradition of cutting fall time short. However, for the last few years that's usually taken the form of indefinite summer well into October. And I can't lie—I much prefer that to the prospect of early snow. But if it can't be helped, it can't be helped.

In Phineas and Ferb, the boys have summer in winter and call it S'Winter. (In a later season, they also do S'Fall.) What are we going to call winter in fall? Wall? Wautumn? I'm open to suggestions.

Rejected Fanfiction Chapter Titles

I recently mentioned that Viola and I once spent an entire baseball game working on our Harry Potter fanfiction. I lied. I just came across the notebook we were using that day. It appears that we actually spent most of the game trying to come up with a title for the chapter we were composing.

Here is the fine selection of rejected titles from that evening:
-"The Buffalo Eater's Apprentice"
-"The Naive Mariner"
-"The Foolish Bee Herder"
-"Take Me Out to the Quidditch Game"
-"I Hate Everyone: The Chapter"
-"To Thine Own Self Be True"
-"You Belong With Me"
-"We Knew This Would Happen"
-"The Quibbler's Truth"
-"The Flying Bratwurst"
-"Alack. $3 for Parking."
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Fanfiction"
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Chapter"
-"How Voldemort Was Defeated and Other Things"
-"Receive a Drink or Slush for Free"
-"The Chapter that Shouldn't Exist"
-"I Object"
-"Hit Her Now, Hit Her"
-"This Chapter Is Not Titled"
-"We Couldn't Think of a Title"
-"The Foolish Flirt"
-"The Dice Dilemma with Dogs"
-"Poor Poor Draco, Whatcha Gonna Do?"
-"I Like Eating Dumplings. & Kisses."
-"Tests, Tricks, and Kisses"
-"The Overzealous Sports Fan"
-"The Annoying Girls Who Couldn't Speak in Coherent Sentences"

A few things: 1) No, I don't remember the context for most of these; 2) In case you were wondering, the titles of the ten preceding chapters in the fanfiction included such delights as "Harry Potter and the Magical Radio Braces," "The World Crashes to the Ground," and "The Escape of the Scented Sticker;" and 3) This is a pretty good representation of how being a writer is like 90% rejection of your own ideas (and 90% of your ideas being rejected by other people, which you might say doesn't make sense mathematically except it does because both of those things are happening simultaneously).

RIP Naomi

In spite of the super hot summer, Naomi survived.

She was still alive (but not budding any longer) at the end of August, when I quit watering her. It was a bit of an ethical dilemma, really. When does one stop water a plant that has outlived its expectations?

Actually, though, a part of her still seems to be alive. Plus a leafy green plant of some kind seems to have taken root in her pot as well. I'm not entirely sure where the water that keeps them alive comes from, but I have my theories.

In other news, I impulse-bought a basil plant a few months ago. Surprisingly, it's still alive. Also surprisingly, basil plants flower. Who knew?!

Reality Isn't Very Realistic

Before I became a professional writer, I was a creative writing student. Before that, I was an amateur child writer who shared my works only within my small circle of such friends and colleagues as amateur child writers have.

Sometimes, when I got a draft back from a fellow creative writing student or amateur child writer friend, there would be a comment along the lines of "This part isn't realistic...it's too coincidental."

Although I can agree that in many cases this feedback improved the draft, I find it strange that we demand our fiction be realistic and not coincidental. Reality isn't actually very realistic and it's often coincidental. As Mark Twain said, "Truth is stranger than fiction." And as I say (inspired somewhat by my history professor), "I find reality to be very strange."

I should define what I mean by "coincidental". Some people believe that life is chaos and randomness. I don't believe that. I believe that, like an author, the God of our world has put a lot of time and thought into building a reality full of delights. I personally don't think it's a coincidence when the person you've been thinking about all day just happens to be at the grocery store or when you have a hard day at work and then someone brings you cookies. Those are what we LDS folk call "tender mercies," and I believe that the hand of God is in them because He cares about us. There are other things that I would consider coincidences, like that you and all your closest friends were born on the 11th day of different months (I'm just making stuff up here). And yet, I still don't think those coincidences are as coincidental as we'd like them to be. I don't necessarily think they have any special meaning, but I do think they're little fun things that God threw into the design of the world...just for fun.

Anyway, whatever you believe coincidences are, life is just full of 'em.

Consider this: three of my four grandparents were born in the same year. Now, it's not very weird that my dad's parents were born in the same year, since they met in college. But both my parents' mothers were born in the same year, which is really weird. Statistically speaking, when you consider how many fertile years an adult woman has in her life, the chances of you marrying someone whose mother was born in the same year as your own mother are very low. Like, I legitimately don't even have any friends whose mother was born the same year as mine. Shutterbug's mom is probably a couple years younger than mine, but she's the only one who even comes close. A friend in junior high's mother was six or seven years younger than mine because she gave birth in her teens; Viola's mother is about 20 years older than mine because she gave birth in her forties. The span is wide.

What about this? Older Sister is a brunette; I'm a blonde (though not as blonde as I once was). Little Sister is a brunette; Baby Sister is a blonde. Little Brother is a brunette; Baby Brother is a blonde. Our hair colors alternate perfectly.

Or this? Little Brother was born on our dad's mom's birthday, and Baby Brother was born on our dad's dad's birthday. I mean, yeah, Little Brother was induced the day before our grandma's birthday, and there was a decent chance of him not coming until the next day. But Baby Brother came on his own about three weeks early. There's no accounting for it.

I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days because of a true event that no half-decent editor would ever let a writer put in their novel: an acquaintance who lives here in Hometown contacted me with some questions. The conversation ended, and I thought nothing else about it. A few weeks later, that acquaintance went to New York City, where there are literally millions of people. Yet he still happened to run into Older Sister outside a theatre and then asked her about the same topic!

In short, if fiction is supposed to mirror real life, then it should have more, and not less, coincidences.

Super Popular Baby Names that Everyone Is Giving to their Kids

Do you have a baby? Are you going to have a baby? Are you coming up with names for that baby? Well, I’m here to inform you that I know lots of people who have babies, and over the past five or so years I’ve noticed some names which are really popular. Like, I know of at least three people with different backgrounds, beliefs, or even just aesthetics who gave or are planning to give the same name to their babies. Case in point: the Chess Master, a middle-aged relative of a more liberal friend, a sweet childhood friend who was considered unpopular/unfashionable by some, and a super popular girl I went to school with all gave their sons the exact same name.

I’m not trying to knock these names by including them on this list. I actually think most of them are super cute (and I’m jealous that I didn’t have kids before some of them became overused)! I just thought it might be a good service to list some of these names for those of you who don’t want to do the same thing as everyone else.

These super popular names are, in no particular order:
Girls: Sadie, Olivia, Nora, Ruby, Millie, Alice, Lucy, Lydia, Zoe, and Grace (or some variation thereof)
Boys: William, Liam, Henry, Christian, Oliver, James, Samuel

How many of you know 3+ small children with one of these names? Did I miss any other obvious ones?

19 Years Later

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real? -Albus Dumbledore

I've posted soooo much about Harry Potter this summer on account of all the important things that keep happening. You probably thought I was out of things to say on the subject, but naw son, I'm not!

I'll keep it brief, though. All I want to say is this: For those of you who don't know, today is a significant day. It's the last day shown in the Harry Potter series, the day in the epilogue when Harry's son Albus heads off to Hogwarts for the first time. Today is the day of saying goodbye to the official end of the original series. (A few years ago, I saw someone comment online about how Harry Potter fans are lucky because we have so many opportunities to say goodbye. First the last book came out, then a few years later the last movie. Now we have this one last opportunity to revel in this thing we love.)

So, because of a children's book series, today an entire generation is going out of its mind...in a good way. Maybe the eclipse brought this country together to an extent, but we all know that the thing that really brings this country (and the world) together is Harry Potter. Somehow, this boy, this story, transcends political parties, races, languages, religions, countries, and ages in a way that the most ardent pacifists can only dream of.

It's my growing belief that good stories can change the world. They change us on a personal level by giving us something to laugh with, cry over, and relate to. But they also change us on a broader scale, I think, because when you add up billions of people laughing and crying and relating over the same thing, it's a strong bond. Love may be the power that heals our rifts, but the healing is done through stories—big and small, true and imagined, scripture and novel.