someone's head resting on my knee

I haven't updated since Wednesday? Bleaugh. I do little of late. Oh, Friday was hanging out with Board people. Yeah, that was awesome. Cinderella's place is really nice. Leibniz kindly jumped my car (self, please stop turning on headlights except when necessary). Even made it back to Melyngoch's place afterward for a delightful discussion with Katya. I'd made some vegetable lasagna, which turned out fairly well. Agreeably bland. Wish I'd used a little spinach or made my own marinara.

I got my package from LDSLiving, which is exciting. UPS seems to be struggling to get things to me, what with my odd hours and the apartment switch. Made me think of an interesting shipping concept: ApEx, approximated delivery. That is, you drive a package to a shipping center, and they send it to the center nearest the destination, where the recipient picks it up. You'd probably have to guarantee that there's a center within every million-person radius, or something to that effect. Wonder how much cheaper it would be.

Also did laundry. Was happy with myself for having spent lots of cash the previous week so as to have plenty of quarters; I loathe special trips to make change. If other people's spending habits are similar to mine, one could single-handedly collapse Provo's economy solely by placing change machines in all the laundromats.

Had a rare moment of free time away from the new girlfriend (still a secret...hint: she's brilliant and adorably green) Saturday afternoon, which was actually quite nice; I thoroughly enjoyed a long, profound conversation with the dear, noble Magneto to my Xavier. (Boy, it's strange having serious conversations before dusk.) Also played some Age of Empires for the first time in a month.

Ditched Elders' Quorum today, having misplaced my scriptures and lesson manual in getting ready for church. Good testimony meeting, though. (The theme seemed to be "I know that God loves and misses us all," which seems a bit presumptuous, but, you know, true and such.)

Have realized lately that I actually use connotationally negative self-descriptions as a defense mechanism. Examples: "Oh, I fully intend to raise my family with Gospel-prescribed habits; I enjoy being Pharisaical"; "I don't arrive early at airports, but I like wasting time; I just don't want to be overly diligent." Basically, I'm happy to do good things so long as I can invent a disreputable motive or manner. (Being the mascot in Science Bowl, getting a D in AP English, mopping the kitchen floor at four in the morning.) Guess it's a pretty smart strategy, self; you never appear self-aggrandizing, and if anyone disagrees with you, they're only paying you a compliment. Wish you could be good even when respectability is inescapable, though.

Also discovered a formative factor in my discomfort with spirtuality: Pierce, my little bro who died when I was seven, shortly before his first birthday. We discovered his congenital cardiopulmonary defect fairly earlily on, and it occurred to my young mind that perhaps his condition was God's punishment for my sins. Hoping to alleviate the curse, I went and told my father that I'd been having unclean thoughts. After his unsurprising death, I received two things: my first set of scriptures and one of Pierce's old stuffed toys. The scriptures lay dormant until I decided to read the Book of Mormon before being ordained a deacon, but I kept the toy in my bed. After a while, I decided it was a landline to Pierce, and tried to teach my cousin Cassian to use it. Having little success, he began to direct questions through me to Pierce, finally finding success in confirming the veracity of a tale of a monster he'd just made up.

This is all fairly normal behaviour for that age, I imagine. Nonetheless, it's largely the same embarrassment I felt then that now causes me to throw down my clasped hands in cynical disgust when my prayers move beyond vain repetition, bargaining with hooded death and pleading for insight from an heavenly vantage point.

Had a cool insight reading D&C 121 the other night. I've always kinna assumed that "stronger than the cords of death" is hyperbole in verse 44. A neat way to look at it, though, is that your love will prove stronger than the habits binding him into the reprovable behaviour.