It never hurts to ask

You know those books that shaped your childhood? The books that you carried everywhere, that you reread a million times, and that you couldn't bear to be parted from?

Mine was called, "The Ordinary Princess," and it's the best book in the world.

I had a love affair with this book when I was little. I must've checked it out from the local library at least a thousand times. I found it by happenstance – let's face it, you've probably never heard of it. Most people haven't. I must've on a princess kick at the time (which means I went to the library and searched for "princess") because otherwise I would never have discovered this gem.

The story is simple: there's a princess named Amethyst Alexandria Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne. At her christening, Amethyst is cursed by a fairy. Her curse is to be ordinary.

Psychologically, I assume the book struck a chord with me when I was younger because I felt ordinary. Amy (as her family called her – "and what could be more ordinary than that?") wasn't pretty. She had mousy brown hair and freckles. She was, however, smart, witty, and charming. Throughout the story, Amy never allowed her six older, beautiful, perfect sisters to intimidate her. Instead, she created the life she wanted to have, found her prince, and they lived happily ever after. Naturally any young, awkward, insecure girl would find the story perfect, and I did. What could be better than a strong and self-sufficient princess who finds her true love?

The answer is NOTHING.

Even after I got older, I still checked out the book so often that one of the librarians commented every time I put it on the counter. I didn't care. It's a piece of my childhood that will never get old.

Of course, once I grew up, I decided I wanted a copy of the book for myself. Thanks to a lovely little thing called eBay, I snagged a cheap one without any trouble. The book was recently reprinted, so you can get it on Amazon, etc., but the cover is hideously ugly. I refused to support the desecration of my book by buying that lousy thing.

It was only after the eBay book showed up at my house that I discovered how truly special the version I grew up with was. One of the neat things about the book is that the illustrations were all done by the author, M.M. Kaye. They're charming and dainty; beautiful in their simplicity.

My little eBay paperback included some of the drawings, but a quick perusal left me full of disappointment. For some reason, while the black and white drawings were still there, the three full-page color drawings in my childhood library copy had been cut out. I'm sure nobody else in the world noticed or even knew that drawings were missing, but I knew. It was like a knife to the heart.

Drawings like these were absent:

DO YOU SEE WHAT A LOSS THIS IS?!

I missed those color drawings keenly. I couldn't read my paperback without silently mourning. Because of that, I wasn't satisfied with my little paperback (which also had an ugly cover, by the way.) Instead, I coveted the hardcover library copy. I wanted it badly. I devised all sorts of devious plans - buying the ugly Amazon copy and switching the stickers and library pocket while nobody was looking, seeing if the librarians would do a straight trade for an Amazon upgrade, checking it out and pretending to lose it... I never acted on the plans because I would've felt like a criminal, but I sure thought about them.

Every time I visited my hometown and saw the library, that hunger for "The Ordinary Princess" would reawaken. Finally, last week, acting on much encouraging by my mom and an overwhelming yearning for my book, I decided to go to the library. I planned to ask them to let me know if they ever decided to get rid of the old book from 1984.

It wouldn't hurt to ask, would it?

Truth be told, I nearly lost my nerve when I got to the library, because the librarian who knew my passion for the book wasn't there, nor was the head librarian, who I know pretty well. It's a small town - you know people. The only person there was a librarian named Stephen. (Or Steven.) I found my book (didn't even have to look it up; I knew right where it would be) and alternated between chickening out, putting the book back, and starting toward the checkout counter a couple of times.

But the thing with asking is this: the worst somebody can tell you is "no."

So I took that beautiful, blue, hardback book with the faded cover of a princess who looks like her head is on backward (see the cover at the top of the post) and I put it down on the counter.

"I have a strange request," I said. "I must've read this book five million times while I was growing up, and I was wondering if there was some way you could contact me if the library ever decides to get rid of it."

"Let me see," Stephen/Steven said. 

He picked up my book and scanned it, then scrolled through a couple of things, humming to himself. Then, with a smile, he pulled the library pocket off, put the book on the counter, and slid it over to me. I suspect my face looked like this:

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Nobody has checked it out for three years; it's yours."

I offered to pay, but he refused. I then thanked him so profusely that he probably thought I was crazy. Then I cuddled the book with a sense of reverent awe all the way to the car. I was like a junkie. If Stephen/Steven would've seen me driving clear back to Salt Lake with the book on my lap, he probably would've doubted the wisdom of giving it to me in the first place, but it's too late now...

THE BOOK IS MINE!

It's sitting beside me as I type this, and I can't stop myself from glancing over and smiling. I love this book. I love it so much. Sure, it's all of 112 pages long. Sure, it's meant for third graders. Sure, it's cheesy. But you know what?

I don't care. 

I've loyally waited for this book for a good 15 years, and now it's mine. To quote The Court Jester: "Life couldn't possibly, not even probably, life couldn't possibly better be!"

Lavender's blue

Rosemary's green

When I am King

You shall be Queen

Birthday: You’re doing it wrong

I turned 25 this month. Ever since my birthday, I’ve been dealing with the same awkward question:

“How was your birthday?!” 

Well… to put it simply… I did it wrong. 

I have a long-running streak of bad luck when it comes to celebrations or holidays. For instance, I spent last Christmas at work. If my family hadn’t been willing to delay opening gifts, the highlight of the day would have been seeing a cute guy at the gas station. 

New Year’s Day is my archnemesis – I’ve never had a good one. The movies always make it look so fun, with romance, mystery, excitement, and fireworks. Mine mostly consist of my family sitting around looking tired or being unable to watch TV because someone is sleeping in the TV room. 

Even the once, when New Year’s involved a boy, I still somehow ended up not seeing him and instead acting as chauffer for a friend and someone I didn’t know. Lame. 

My most memorable New Year’s involved a nice bout of pink eye. I’m not kidding here – I woke up early for drill team practice and glanced in the mirror to find this: 

You can understand why my celebration standards are low. 

Now, to be fair, birthdays become lamer the older you get. It’s a rule of aging. Because most of my friends are married and busy, I didn’t expect my birthday to be much. My family fed me cake and sang to me earlier in the week, so that was my main celebration. 

(Although even that got messed up because I had to run back to work so quickly that I left the cake behind, which means my brothers ate my birthday cake… not that I’m bitter…) 

At best, I thought my birthday would involve sitting at home and doing nothing. That wouldn’t have been bad. In fact, that would've been FAR better than what I ended up doing. The birthday I actually experienced left me puzzling over how to say that my birthday was great without lying… 

Because it wasn’t great... It wasn't even good.

Although my birthday fell on a Friday, the fun began the Tuesday before, when a girl backed her truck into my car. My car held up surprisingly well, considering how ghetto it is. The cover over my headlight is smashed, and there’s a big dent in the poo-brown paint. No biggie.  

BUT  

For the next few days, my car felt weird, and I began to worry that the fender bender had damaged the axle or the wheel well. Finally, I decided to take it to the shop. Since Friday (my birthday) was my day off, I knew it would have to be then. Taking a car to the shop on your birthday isn’t a big deal, but it did mean that I found myself downtown at 9 a.m. without anything to do (nothing is open at 9 a.m.) and no car with which to do it. 

Therefore, over the next 6 hours, I did the following things: 

Sat at work

Moaned about my car 

Wrote a newspaper article

Moaned about my car 

Read all the news

Moaned about my car

Caught up on blogs (update yours, Miss Olsen!)

Moaned about my car 

In other words, it was like any other day at work, except with the added bonus of car moaning. 

Finally Big O called. They informed me that my car was fine and that it would be done within the next 45 minutes. They also informed me that I had gotten a parking ticket. 

When I got to Big O, I paid them $74 for a tire alignment – and they paid me $15 for my parking ticket – and then I waited for them to roll my car out of the garage. However, soon the boss came back in and said this: 

“So… There’s a problem… You know how I said there wasn’t anything wrong with it? Um… There’s something wrong with it.” 

Yeah. That’s why I brought it in. 

It turns out that one of the inner bolts on the car had snapped in half. The other one was rusted almost all the way through. The bolts – rather critically – hold the front of the car on. 

According to Ford (should you want the more technical description) “the rear lower subframe mount plate nut can experience stress corrosion cracking if subjected to long term exposure to road salts. This can result in fracture and loss of the structural integrity of the subframe mount attachment. Detachment of the body mounts at the rear corners of the subframe, which supports the engine and transmission, allows the rear corners of the subframe to drop. If both rear corners drop, steering would become suddenly very difficult, affecting vehicle control and increasing the risk of a crash.” 

Translation: If the front of your car falls off, you will crash. 

The nice Big O man refunded my $74 and then estimated the repair would cost $450. He also said he had only seen that problem once, and they took that car straight to the dump. Wonderful. 

I drove home at roughly the speed of a 99-year-old grandma (how would you drive, if the front of your car was being held on by ½ of a rusty bolt?) and sat around waiting for my mom to give me instructions on what to do next. Would I drive the 2 ½ hours home in the death-on-wheels car? Would the parents tell me to get it fixed? Would I have to (gasp!) take public transportation?! 

(In all seriousness, it's a realistic concern for a girl who works night shifts.) 

To sum up my birthday: 

1. Spent 6 hours sitting at work despite it being my day off

2. Got my first-ever parking ticket (first-ever ticket of any sort, thank you.) 

3. Discovered I’d been driving like a maniac while ½ of a bolt away from death.

4. Found myself weighing the costs: $450 vs. a fiery demise. 

5. Sat in my room and wished I could drive somewhere and buy stuff to make myself feel better – but since I didn’t want to spend my birthday with the Grim Reaper, I stayed put.

So, to all of you people who wondered how my birthday went… 

Um… It was good.

P.S. The story doesn’t end badly, though. Due to a valiant phone effort by my mom and a clever dad who looked up Ford recalls, Ford paid for the repair. We had to convince them it snows in Utah (“Greatest Snow on Earth” license plates? The 2002 Winter Olympics? The opening scene of “National Treasure”?! DOES NONE OF THIS MEAN ANYTHING?!) And my mom got me a gift certificate to Shabby Apple, which finally showed up on October 20 and was spent on these:

Also, the Big O guys were lovely. If you’re near 178 East South Temple and need tires, I’d recommend them. Two fellows from work kindly gave me rides when the car was in the shop, and the Larry H. Miller Ford guys gave me a drink token and two rides in a Ford Flex. Yee-haw.

I'm not upset about my birthday – it's more funny than anything. Besides, there's always next year.

I turned a corner...

Guys, I'm just coming out of an infatuation recovery phase, and it's not cool...

Let me explain.

For this to make sense, you have to understand that I generally have the emotional range of a pineapple. A coworker once called me "Queen Stoic," which is a scarily accurate description. It takes a lot to get me excited (although generally anything Disney will do it) and it takes even more to make me angry. (Although once I'm angry I'll remember it forever and get angry all over again when I think about it — stupid girl who made the disgusting claims about American soldiers in Iraq or nutty BYU professor who wouldn't stop emailing me...)

So basically, my emotions are flatlined most of the time, like this:

(Unless I'm driving, in which case I generally look like this:)

Of course, my road rage is an entirely different story...

But then sometimes, unexpectedly and unavoidably, I get infatuated. When that happens, my emotions start going like this:

Those, folks, are a whole lot of emotions for someone who was quite possibly born without them.

Like I've mentioned before (here) I tend to get obsessed with things. Over the past couple of months I've been obsessed with the TV shows "Top Gear" and "Primeval," along with a movie too embarrassing to name. I also went through a brief bracelet phase for some reason, and I'm on the verge of falling into a steampunk/industrial chic phase. (Although "The Guild" is helping me stay on the straight and narrow... must... avoid... the Eurotrash of nerdom...)

Anyway, you'd think with my habit of obsessing, infatuations would be par for the course. Unfortunately, that's not true. I can count maybe five times I've been infatuated over the last five years, and most of those lasted about a week. This infatuation lasted almost an entire month, which is a big deal. When it comes to relationships, it turns out I have the attention span of

 SQUIRREL!

Ahem.

Like I was saying, I spent the better part of September being infatuated. It doesn't matter with whom (although a couple of you will know) it just matters that I was. That happened. And it was glorious while it lasted. You see, I embrace being infatuated because there's a huge gap between the imaginary relationship and the factual reality. From a safe distance, I could imagine the guy was perfect. In my mind, the object of my infatuation wasn't creepily obsessed (P), wasn't controlling (H), didn't insist on touching me all. of. the. time. (CC) and didn't think that my life's ambition was to cook him dinner and wash his socks (J).

(Gee. When I look at the boys I've dated in such black-and-white terms... well, no wonder I prefer to be infatuated from afar... Bunch of winners, there...)

After all, like Marguerite says in "The Scarlet Pimpernel,"

"Ah, but my prince, if you can't be as sweet as you seem
I'd rather dream." 

After the infatuation ended (out of necessity, not because I was ready for it to happen, I assure you) I decided that — as depressing as the post-infatuation period is — the weird emotional swings associated with my silly infatuations are worth it. Why? Because infatuations are fun! Like one of my friends said, my infatuations (as odd as they tend to be) are good because they allow me to feel real, human emotions once in a while.

When you're infatuated with somebody, suddenly life becomes more exciting. In my case, it gave me excuses to dress up, to curl my hair, and to feel my heart give that “thump-thump” people write about in cheesy romance novels. I spent more time downtown in the vague hope that there would be a chance meeting. There was always that sense of anticipation — of hope, of wondering — if the next corner I turned could lead me straight into his arms. It was an eternal quest for an orchestrated “meet-cute,” and it was a blast.

I’ll admit, there’s a reason my favorite Beatles song begins like this… 

I’ve just seen a face, 

I can’t forget the time or place

Where we just met, she’s just the girl for me

And I want all the world to see we’ve met 

Na na na na na na 

And there’s a reason my favorite song from “Thoroughly Modern Millie” happens to include… 

Thousands of people

Way down below

Wandering to and fro 

Tireless people

No time to lose

Crowding the avenues and parks 

On their marks

Racing fast; quite a cast

Millions of people, pick any two 

They could be just like 

You and me used to be

Way back when, strangers, then – 

I turned the corner

And there you stood

Your smile like home to me 

Your heart familiar

No use pretending, not that I could

I turned the corner when I met you 

You see, somewhere deep down in this cold, hard heart of mine, I’m 100% a romantic. (Albeit a cynical and therefore confused one, of course.) I find the whole concept of love fascinating — possibly because I’ve seen so many of my friends get married off. (Dang friends.) Think about it — we spend our whole lives waiting to fall in love. And then, unexpectedly, with one chance meeting, one cheerful conversation, or one enjoyable date, your life can be turned upside down. Now that's power.

Infatuation's not quite that powerful, but I suppose it could be considered a warm-up. Although...

It would probably be more powerful if I were actually brave enough to say hello to the target. Hmmm.