"Let Them Eat Cake!"

I know it's doubtful whether Marie Antionette ever said that. I also know that I used a derivative of the “Have your cake and eat it, too!” phrase in my last entry, and my husband stopped to ask me “What does that even mean?” The truth is, I'm not sure. Like many phrases that I hear and use on a regular basis, I know what it means, I just don't . . . know . . . what it means.

It's kind of like I trust you implicitly. Well, once you express that trust, isn't it explicit now? But back to cake.

Is there anything inherently wonderful about just having cake? I mean, I've always thought the real joy was to be had in eating said cake, but that's just me. Also, I would think you'd have to be in the possession of cake in order to be eating it. So, while I understand that this phrase is supposed to represent the conundrum we face in wanting conflicting scenarios to play out, I don't quite get it. Neither does Alex. I think it's because we have had the experience of literally attempting to have our cake and eat it, too. As it turns out, it wasn't super great.

You know that wedding tradition that says you're supposed to keep part of your cake in the freezer so that you can eat it on your one year anniversary? That's where this story begins. The day that Alex and I were married, we left our reception with a bit of cake to freeze. We ate some and then formulated a plan. We decided that we would divide the cake into twelve little slices and eat a portion every month for the first year of our marriage. This was great for the first few months, but after that we began to notice that our once tasty cake was getting increasingly stale and well, just gross. We gave up on our monthly slices, took an out-of-town anniversary trip, and unceremoniously threw the remnants of the cake out when we moved. This was a bummer—especially since we had made the pieces progressively larger as we were to approach our anniversary.

This is yet another tradition that I just don't understand. Maybe some smart-mouthed pessimist out there wants to tell me that the frozen cake is a representation of marriage—the honeymoon ends and things get nasty. To you, Mr./Ms. Daryl/Debbie Downer, I say: Shut your cake-hole; I don't wanna hear it. Unlike the cake, my marriage isn't on ice. Also, I may have absolutely no idea why I would keep a perfectly good cake in the freezer, but I know exactly why we got married, and we are enjoying [almost] every moment of our life together.

What's the good of having cake and eating it? I guess as long as you have the cake, you can eat it. That's probably why the metaphor is what it is. I would like to reinvent this saying, though. “Eat your cake already. Don't put it in the freezer. Just eat your cake and enjoy it.” (I explicitly trust that you'll be happy if you follow this advice.)

P.S. If you do decide to participate in the time-honored tradition of freezing your wedding cake, wrap it in MANY layers of plastic wrap to guard against freezer burn. This is something we didn't do that might have saved our cake. Those of you looking for further symbolism here, go ahead, but I'm done here.

The Drama of Clothes-Cleaning

Days of Our Lives Laundry

I have a problem with laundry. I didn't used to think it would ever come to this—I mean, how hard is it to gather the clothes, sort them, then put them in the washer and dryer?

Turns out it's pretty tough.

My perceptions of laundry changed when we lived in an apartment without a washer and dryer. This necessitated a trip to the laundromat down the street. Our relationship with the laundromat was complicated. As one who was used to being able to run downstairs and throw in a load of laundry late the night I realized that I didn't have clean underwear for the morrow, it was a difficult adjustment. It was like a story problem from Hades: “Alex has 4 remaining pairs of socks, Malinda has 2 pairs of underwear, and Alex has 1 pair of clean work pants. If Malinda works immediately after classes Tuesday through Thursday and Alex has the car from 3 to 11 Monday through Saturday, which is the best day and time to do the laundry, accounting for the fact that Malinda has a major paper due next Tuesday?”

The answer of course was “D. None of the above. Malinda and Alex join a nudist colony and never have to worry about laundry again.” If only. (Just kidding. Obviously, I'm just kidding.)

As we navigated the complex issues of school, work, and laundry, we lost two pairs of pants to the laundry gremlins who apparently weren't getting enough socks and started gnawing on our jeans as a result. After getting home to discover that one of Alex's brand new pairs of pants had been torn across the back by the machines, I was determined to switch laundromats. When I went the extra block to try a different laundromat, though, I was scared off by the lack of people and maintenance that the place had seen. When my first thoughts were “This place is kind of ghetto,” and “Nobody would hear my screams or find my body if I were to be murdered here,” I immediately packed up my clothes and went back to my laundromat of origin. At least if I died there, somebody would find my body before hope to catch the perpetrator had expired.

We didn't lose any more clothes to the fierce ogres in the dryer after that. Nor did I feel threatened while doing my laundry. It was win-win.

Shortly thereafter, we moved to a new apartment that had a washer and dryer, and I thought: “Doing laundry will be a piece of cake now.” But it wasn't, because there's always something. For instance, now when I gather laundry, I have to gather it from two places, instead of just one. So rough.

I've actually discovered that my family and I tend to dress in certain colors for certain times of the week. This isn't because we try to match, or because I declare “turquoise Tuesdays” or “fuchsia Fridays.” It just sort of naturally happens because we wear what's clean—and it rarely happens that all of our colors are clean at the same time. I read in an article about dejunking yesterday that this [not doing your laundry for awhile] can be great way to know what clothes to get rid of: you simply wait to do laundry until someone complains that they “don't have anything to wear,” and then get rid of the other clothes that are still sitting in closets because they probably aren't being worn anyway. I'm really good at employing this strategy—the not doing laundry part, at least—I just never get around to the dejunk the closet part. Probably because I always seem to be doing laundry.

I think the thing about laundry is that it requires commitment to see a load from the washer all the way to its final folded form in drawers. There are so many chances to be interrupted in the middle, and then you are forever trapped in the spin cycles of “I'd better rewash this because I forgot it was sitting here in the washer growing mildew,” and the “We've officially lost track of which pile is clean and which is dirty. Time to do laundry and start it all again!”

It's time to break the cycle. There has to be a way that my family can wear our blues with our reds without advance notice—or is that “Having our cake and eating it, too?” I can only wonder. And since my family will be forever dirtying clothes, I will presumably have plenty of time to ponder this question and search for its answers. Unless we all become nudists. (Still kidding! Obviously still kidding.) At any rate, I declare today to be “fuchsia Friday” as a sign of solidarity among those of us struggling with the laundry blues.

Hard Decisions: In Defense of the Vanilla I Have Chosen

I once had a teacher share a story about a sports team whose motto was “Vanilla. Choose the hard thing!” (or something like that). The saying was supposed to represent the difficulty in life when decisions have to be made. In an ice cream shop filled with many options, what's harder than skipping the extravagance and going for the plain, boring, and traditional vanilla? Sometimes those are the decisions that have to be made, right?

But there are people who actually like vanilla. On a recent trip to the store, my little sister was allowed to choose the ice cream. After looking over all the options, she opted for vanilla. As my mom and I teased her about how unacceptable vanilla was (“What sorts of choices will you make in your life if you can't even properly choose ice cream flavors?”) and she pretended she had made a hasty decision (“Cookies and cream? Yeah! I didn't even see that one!”), we went with the more interesting flavor and abandoned vanilla. But I could see by the look in her eyes that she really would have liked vanilla. After all, when you rarely get ice cream, even vanilla is a treat.

As a vanilla person myself, I understand this. And when I say I'm a “vanilla person,” I don't simply mean that I enjoy vanilla Frostys more than their original counterpart. I mean that I'm somewhat bland in comparison to some of the other people here in the ice cream shop of life. I don't skydive and live dangerously. I'm not gorgeous or famous. I'm not trying to cure cancer or rid the world of hunger because I've already accepted that those aren't the stars for which I'm shooting anymore.

It wasn't an easy conclusion. Like every child in America, I was raised on school assignments of “What Would You Do If You Were President of the United States?” and fantasies of becoming a pop star over night. Admitting my mediocrity in the world was tough—and I'm not saying this in a dejected, woe-is-me way. I'm just saying, in a matter-of-fact way, that I'm like everyone else. I mean, I think I'm cool, but it's just an average kind of cool. So, I gave up my more far-fetched ambitions of being a real-life princess-astronaut who moonlights as Bill Nye the Science Guy's assistant and “settled” for something rather vanilla by comparison that I had dreamed of doing far before anything else.

Thus, I became a mother. And I do believe that so far, it has rivaled my previous dreams for excitement, joy, and all-out flavor. The thing about vanilla ice cream, choices, and people is that we are flexible. We go well with chocolate syrup, birthday cake, and sprinkles. We do well in all sorts of circumstances, and no matter what the other options might have been. And as one who likes vanilla, I'm quite happy with the choice I have made, hard as it may have been. I've got all the sweetness I could ever want.

Hello! I'm a Conservative Christian. Let Me Tell You What I Really Believe.

So, I'm getting a little tired of having various internet memes tell me what I believe and how I live my life. Mostly because they tend to be wrong. Occasionally, when I run across one with a particularly amusing punchline, I read it and snort before getting on with my life. Unfortunately, most of the memes describing “my lifestyle” that I encounter are just offensive to me. The other day I saw a meme with a caption saying something to the effect of “I'm a Conservative Christian and I believe in the sanctity of marriage. So do four out of my five previous husbands.” I didn't laugh when I read this one. Instead, I got a bit upset and cried some angry tears because I feel like I am being misrepresented on the internet—along with many others who share my similar values. You may say, “Well, yeah, but that's because you're part of the group. If you were on the opposing side of the fence, you would find it funny like the rest of us.

Would I?

The whole point of me telling you this is to tell you that I, as someone who identifies as a “conservative Christian,” am an individual. A real person. And at the risk of sounding too much like an episode of Sesame Street, it makes me sad when people aren't nice to me. Actually, it makes me sad when people aren't nice—whether I'm the victim or not. So, don't give me this crap about “The tables being turned,” and “How do I like it?” because although I have my beliefs, I DON'T HATE GAY PEOPLE. I don't post memes ridiculing people who are different from me, and I don't sit around in my spare time thinking of all the reasons I think they are going to Hell. In fact, I don't even believe in Hell in thetraditional sense, and the person I most frequently condemn is myself. I don't enjoy it when anybody is mocked and ridiculed, whether they believe as I do or not!

Yes, I'm a Christian. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—you may more readily recognize the term Mormon. I also happen to lean to the right politically. I do value the sanctity of marriage. I understand there are many who oppose my viewpoint. If you are one of them, that's okay. I think you're wrong. But I also know that you think that I'm wrong. The issue I'm concerned with here is not who is right and who is wrong (because I think we'll find that at the end of the day, we each believe the other is wrong, no matter what is said). My concern here is that yes, we disagree. Now what?

I suppose we could continue to create and share fallacious memes that illustrate why the opposite view is stupid in addition to being wrong, but I'm personally getting tired of the same old arguments. Yes, sometimes heterosexual marriages end in divorce. I think this is unfortunate. But (forgive me, you'll have to step inside my religiously extremist mind here—try not to judge too harshly!) I don't believe two wrongs make a right. Divorce, like marriage, is a choice. And while some people may be making the choice of “serial monogamy,” I am not one of them. When I say that marriage is something that I hold sacred, this means that in addition to viewing marriage as between a man and a woman, I was particularly careful while searching for my own spouse. My grandma used to tell me that most girls are more selective of their prom dresses than their husbands. I was not about to be one of those girls. Because I view marriage as special, it's not a relationship I was willing to enter into with just anybody. I kept looking until I finally found someone I believed was worthy to be called my husband. Now that we have found each other, we are doing all we can to ensure that our marriage lasts. So please, don't lump me into a group that believes that divorce is a natural result of marriage. I'm putting a lot of work into this relationship called marriage, and I find it hurtful when others cavalierly come along and tell me I'm going to fail when they don't even know my husband and me.

But lets talk about something that many of those on “my side” have been guilty of. Like the idea that heterosexual people have a monopoly on the pursuit of happiness—particularly where relationships and family are concerned. “Gay people shouldn't get married or adopt because they can't have kids naturally.” You've probably heard that one at least a few times. I don't like it because I don't think that inability to reproduce “naturally” is something to rub anyone's nose in. You probably find the “gay people shouldn't have kids because they aren't good parents” line of reasoning to be as repulsive and distasteful as I find the “religious right-wingers are all hateful people who deserve their multiple divorces” logic—because it's a sweeping generalization that's wrong. Those people I know who identify as homosexual would make great parents if the opportunity came their way. It would seem to me, that the pain that comes to those individuals who are unable to marry or have a family for reasons related to sexual orientation is just as real as that of any single person who is unable to realize their need for intimacy or any couple longing for a child. We should stop mocking the sadness associated with these circumstances—regardless of the sexual orientation of those involved.

The debate over whether or not homosexuals should be able to marry is a sensitive one with very personal ramifications for both sides. It is a discussion that should be had civilly—which civility is typically lacking in internet memes. By all means, post factual sources that support your cause. Electronically share your beliefs—I will be. Just please, as you do your best to tell others how you feel about controversial issues, leave the memes out of it. This is a delicate subject with actual people on both sides, and we can't be fully represented by such sweeping generalizations.

Adolescents and Young Adult Fiction

I've been reading a bit of young-adult fiction. Yep. Me. I know this will shock some of you *Ha! Yeah, right.*, but I have. It's my reading equivalent of dessert—my [somewhat] guilty pleasure.

The reason I feel somewhat guilty about it is because somebody on some website wrote this article saying I should “feel embarrassed about reading things written for children.” In my situation, I disagree on several levels—i.e., it doesn't comprise my entire reading “diet,” many classics and great literary works are/were “written for children” (or have at least come to be viewed as such), and you know, other great points that I can neither come up with off the top of my head, nor do I care to right now because this was supposed to be a negligible part of my topic for the day and yet it has already highjacked this entire paragraph. Suffice it to say that I don't view the reading of YA literature to be inherently wrong.

Unless . . .

Here is the part of the blog in which people may snort at me, argue, and say I'm ridiculously conservative and naively idealistic. Also, some crazy zealots may agree with me and call for the overthrow of the American Library Association (ALA) or something equally rash. Me, I'm just going to tell you what I've been thinking and leave you all to do your thing. (There will be no refreshments at the conclusion of this discussion, so if that's what you're hanging around for, you are welcome to leave now and we'll all just pretend you've stumbled into the wrong blog.)

I'm wondering about the definition of the term young adult. I mean, adults are (or at least, used to be) identified as those who were say, responsible, and taking on the rigors of careers, healthy and relatively permanent relationships, caring for children, buying houses, etc. Skipping discussions about immaturity and delayed decision-making in adulthood (Another day, guys, another day!), let's simply say that adulthood begins at the—here in the United States—generally accepted age of eighteen. If adulthood begins at 18 and extends through the rest of our lives, I would identify young adults to be . . . oh, say, those between 18 and 30, at least. Therefore, I am a young adult.

You know who agrees with me? Psychologist Erik Erikson, whose name makes me wonder how long that name's been in the family. Erikson's stages of development names the period from about 12 to 18 adolescence, with the subsequent stage being young adulthood. Young adulthood stretches from about 19 to 40. In case you were wondering, the main conflict of adolescence is Identity vs. Role Confusion. In other words, “Who am I?” These issues must be resolved prior to advancement to the young adult conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation (in which young adults seek love and permanent relationships), or the transition to young adulthood can be complicated by confusion and an inability to plan for the future.

According to this Wikipedia article on YA literature though, when the concept of writing especially for young adults originated in the early 1800s, author Sarah Trimmer described the audience as those between the ages of 14 and 21. This age range has been continually lowered, and now the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA [Not to be confused with Yalta—the Ukrainian port where world leaders met to discuss terms following WWII—or salsa, which is good on chips]) division of the ALA has defined young adults to be those aged 12 to 18 years old. The article claims that most young-adult authors are typically writing for those aged 16 to 25, while those writing for the 10 to 15 year-old demographic are writing Teen Fiction. This is a distinction that is rarely made, though. At least in my mind and at my local library, I find Teen Fiction to be lumped in with its apparently older sibling, Young Adult Fiction.

The article goes on to tell us that the “Golden Age” of YA fiction took place from the mid-1970s through the '80s. At this time, limits were pushed such that common themes included rape, suicide, parental death, and murder. Come the '90s, these would grow to include drinking, sexuality, drug use, identity, beauty, and teen pregnancy. That's quite a list. At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I don't think that teens (and when I say “teens,” I mean the group that Erikson defines as adolescents—the supposed audience of YA fiction) are well enough equipped to deal with all of these social issues. Nor do I think it necessary that they should be encountering the more dire of these adult situations, even if only in print. Yes, I know that bad things happen because this is the real world, and that, unfortunately, many teens are living out the “adult situations” contained in YA fiction. I regret that and realize that much of this is unavoidable. But I don't believe that it's healthy to glorify such unfortunate circumstances or to pretend as though these characters' plights represent those of the majority of teens. To present a large number of volumes in which “average” teenagers are endeavoring to resolve the Intimacy vs. Isolation conflict of their yet to come young adulthood before they've even discovered who they are—and to label genre and reader as “young adult” could be detrimental. It slyly encourages the continuation of premature maturation via the depictions of some very harmful behaviors for adolescents.


I see this as an issue that deserves some serious consideration. It should be something that authors, publishers, and librarians should think about while writing and selecting so-called young-adult fiction. But more importantly, it should be something that parents and their children talk about as books are bought or borrowed. Should certain books be banned? I'm not going to open that can of worms; in your household, that's your decision. Should they be discussed? Absolutely. It may be that you decide that your child is mature enough to handle a certain level of exposure through fiction. I myself have decided that there is no way that I can completely control what my daughter sees and hears as she grows up. Sadly, there will be some content and experiences that she will be exposed to, no matter how hard I try to protect her. Books may be a more gentle way for her to see the world as it is. However, as I teach her and help her to select the books she reads, I would hope that those selections would be uplifting. And I would hope those selections would be accompanied by her thoughts on the books and the characters, themes, and morals they contain.

P.S. I was only kidding about the no refreshments thing. We're stopping for chips and salsa on the way to storm the ALA. Contact me to discuss carpooling.