Long, but really nice article about Fred Rogers.
By TOM JUNOD Nov 1, 1998
ONCE UPON A TIME, a little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit. It was so old, in fact, that it was really an unstuffed animal; so old that even back then, with the little boy's brain still nice and fresh, he had no memory of it as "Young Rabbit," or even "Rabbit"; so old that Old Rabbit was barely' a rabbit at all but rather a greasy hunk of skin without eyes and ears, with a single red stitch where its tongue used to be. The little boy didn't know why he loved Old Rabbit he just did, and the night he threw it out the car window was the night he learned how to pray. He would grow up to become a great prayer, this little boy, but only intermittently, only fitfully, praying only when fear and desperation drove him to it, and the night he threw Old Rabbit into the darkness was the night that set the pattern, the night that taught him how. He prayed for Old Rabbit's safe return, and when, hours later, his mother and father came home with the filthy, precious strip of rabbity roadkill, he learned not only that prayers are sometimes answered but also the kind of severe effort they entail, the kind of endless frantic summoning. And so when he threw Old Rabbit out the car window the next time, it was gone for good.
YOU WERE A CHILD ONCE, TOO. That's what Mister Rogers said, that's what he wrote down, once upon a time, for the doctors. The doctors were ophthalmologists. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever. The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting together--a chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. Because Mister Rogers is such a busy man, however, he could not write the chapter himself, and he asked a woman who worked for him to write it instead. She worked very hard at writing the chapter, until one day she showed what she had written to Mister Rogers, who read it and crossed it all out and wrote a sentence addressed directly to the doctors who would be reading it: "You were a child once, too."
And that's how the chapter began.
THE OLD NAVY-BLUE SPORT JACKET comes off first, then the dress shoes, except that now there is not the famous sweater or the famous sneakers to replace them, and so after the shoes he's on to the dark socks, peeling them off and showing the blanched skin of his narrow feet. The tie is next, the scanty black batwing of a bow tie hand-tied at his slender throat, and then the shirt, always white or light blue, whisked from his body button by button. He wears an undershirt, of course, but no matter--soon that's gone, too, as is the belt, as are the beige trousers, until his undershorts stand as the last impediment to his nakedness. They are boxers, egg-colored, and to rid himself of them he bends at the waist, and stands on one leg, and hops, and lifts one knee toward his chest and then the other and then... Mister Rogers has no clothes on.
Nearly every morning of his life, Mister Rogers has gone swimming, and now, here he is, standing in a locker room, seventy years old and as white as the Easter Bunny, rimed with frost wherever he has hair, gnawed pink in the spots where his dry skin has gone to flaking, slightly wattled at the neck, slightly stooped at the shoulder, slightly sunken in the chest, slightly curvy at the hips, slightly pigeoned at the toes, slightly as wing at the fine bobbing nest of himself... and yet when he speaks, it is in that voice, his voice, the famous one, the unmistakable one, the televised one, the voice dressed in sweater and sneakers, the soft one, the reassuring one, the curious and expository one, the sly voice that sounds adult to the ears of children and childish to the ears of adults, and what he says, in the midst of all his bobbing-nudity, is as understated as it is obvious: "Well, Tom, I guess you've already gotten a deeper glimpse into my daily routine than most people have."
ONCE UPON A TIME, a tong time ago, a man took off his jacket and put on a sweater. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of sneakers. His name was Fred Rogers. He was starting a television program, aimed at children, called Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He had been on television before, but only as the voices and movements of puppets, on a program called The Children's Corner. Now he was stepping in front of the camera as Mister Rogers, and he wanted to do things right, and whatever he did right, he wanted to repeat. And so, once upon a time, Fred Rogers took off his jacket and put on a sweater his mother had made him, a cardigan with a zipper. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers. He did the same thing the next day, and then the next... until he had done the same things, those things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865 television programs, over a span of thirty-one years. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. He had just come back from visiting Koko, the gorilla who has learned--or who has been taught--American Sign Language. Koko watches television. Koko watches Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and when Mister Rogers, in his sweater and sneakers, entered the place where she lives, Koko immediately folded him in her long, black arms, as though he were a child, and then... "She took my shoes off, Tom," Mister Rogers said.
Koko was much bigger than Mister Rogers. She weighed 280 pounds, and Mister Rogers weighed 143. Koko weighed 280 pounds because she is a gorilla, and Mister Rogers weighed 143 pounds because he has weighed 143 pounds as long as he has been Mister Rogers, because once upon a time, around thirty-one years ago, Mister Rogers stepped on a scale, and the scale told him that Mister Rogers weighs 143 pounds. No, not that he weighed 143 pounds, but that he weighs 143 pounds.... And so, every day, Mister Rogers refuses to do anything that would make his weight change--he neither drinks, nor smokes, nor eats flesh of any kind, nor goes to bed late at night, nor sleeps late in the morning, nor even watches television--and every morning, when he swims, he steps on a scale in his bathing suit and his bathing cap and his goggles, and the scale tells him he weighs 143 pounds. This has happened so many times that Mister Rogers has come to see that number as a gift, as a destiny fulfilled, because, as he says, "the number 143 means `I love you.' It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say `love' and three letters to say `you.' One hundred and forty-three. `I love you.' Isn't that wonderful?"
THE FIRST TIME I CALLED MISTER ROGERS on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap. He takes a nap every day in the late afternoon--just as he wakes up every morning at five-thirty to read and study and write and pray for the legions who have requested his prayers; just as he goes to bed at nine-thirty at night and sleeps eight hours without interruption. On this afternoon, the end of a hot, yellow day in New York City, he was very tired, and when I asked if I could go to his apartment and see him, he paused for a moment and said shyly, "Well, Tom, I'm in my bathrobe, if you don't mind." I told him I didn't mind, and when, five minutes later, I took the elevator to his floor, well, sure enough, there was Mister Rogers, silver-haired, standing in the golden door at the end of the hallway and wearing eyeglasses and suede moccasins with rawhide laces and a flimsy old blue-and-yellow bathrobe that revealed whatever part of his skinny white calves his dark-blue dress socks didn't hide. "Welcome, Tom," he said with a slight bow, and bade me follow him inside, where he lay down--no, stretched out, as though he had known me all his life--on a couch upholstered with gold velveteen; He rested his head on a small pillow and kept his eyes closed while he explained that he had bought the apartment thirty years before for $11,000 and kept it for whenever he came to New York on business for the Neighborhood. I sat in an old armchair and looked around. The place was drab and dim, with the smell of stalled air and a stain of daguerreotype sunlight on its closed, slatted blinds, and Mister Rogers looked so at home in its gloomy familiarity that I thought he was going to fall back asleep when suddenly the phone rang, startling him. "Oh, hello, my dear," he said when he picked it up, and then he said that he had a visitor, someone who wanted to learn more about the Neighborhood. "Would you like to speak to him?" he asked, and then handed me the phone: "It's Joanne," he said. I took the phone and spoke to a woman--his wife, the mother of his two sons--whose voice was hearty and almost whooping in its forthrightness and who spoke to me as though she had known me for a long time and was making the effort to keep up the acquaintance. When I handed him back the phone, he said, "Bye, my dear," and hung up and curled on the couch like a cat, with his bare calves swirled underneath him and one of his hands gripping his ankle, so that he looked as languorous as an odalisque. There was an energy to him, however, a fearlessness, an unashamed insistence on intimacy; and though I tried to ask him questions about himself, he always turned the questions back on me, and when I finally got him to talk about the puppets that were the comfort of his lonely boyhood, he looked at me, his gray-blue eyes at once mild and steady; and asked, "What about you, Tom? Did you have any special friends growing up?"
"Special friends?"
"Yes," he said. "Maybe a puppet, or a special toy, or maybe just a stuffed animal you loved very much. Did you have a special friend like that, Tom?"
"Yes, Mister Rogers."
"Did your special friend have a name, Tom?"
"Yes, Mister Rogers. His name was Old Rabbit."
"Old Rabbit. Oh, and I'll bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?"
And it was just about then, when I was spilling the beans about my special friend, that Mister Rogers rose from his corner of the couch and stood suddenly in front of me with a small black camera in hand. "Can I take your picture, Tom?" he asked. "I'd like to take your picture. I like to take pictures of all my new friends, so that I can show them to Joanne .... "And then, in the dark room, there was a wallop of white light, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it.
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a boy who didn't like himself very much. It was not his fault. He was born with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is something that happens to the brain. It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. This boy had a very bad case of cerebral palsy, and when he was still a little boy; some of the people entrusted to take care of him took advantage of him instead and did things to him that made him think that he was a very bad little boy, because only a bad little boy would have to live with the things he had to live with. In fact, when the little boy grew up to be a teenager, he would get so mad at himself that he would hit himself, hard, with his own fists and tell his mother, on the computer he used for a mouth, that he didn't want to live anymore, for he was sure that God didn't like what was inside him any more than he did. He had always loved Mister Rogers, though, and now, even when he was fourteen years old, he watched the Neighborhood whenever it was on, and the boy's mother sometimes thought that Mister Rogers was keeping her son alive. She and the boy lived together in a city in California, and although she wanted very much for her son to meet Mister Rogers, she knew that he was far too disabled to travel all the way to Pittsburgh, so she figured he would never meet his hero, until one day she learned through a special foundation designed to help children like her son that Mister Rogers was coming to California and that after he visited the gorilla named Koko, he was coming to meet her son.
At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. He was so nervous, in fact, that when Mister Rogers did visit, he got mad at himself and began hating himself and hitting himself, and his mother had to take him to another room and talk to him. Mister Rogers didn't leave, though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently; and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, "I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?" On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said, "I would like you to pray for me, Will you pray for me?" And now the boy didn't know how to respond. He was thunderstruck. Thunderstruck means that you can't talk, because something has happened that's as sudden and as miraculous and maybe as scary as a bolt of lightning, and all you can do is listen to the rumble. The boy was thunderstruck because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know if he could do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean God likes him, too.
As for Mister Rogers himself.., well, he doesn't look at the story in the same way that the boy did or that I did. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being so smart--for knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himself--and Mister Rogers responded by looking at me at first with puzzlement and then with surprise. "Oh, heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession."
ON DECEMBER 1, 1997 --oh, heck, once upon a time--a boy, no longer little, told his friends to watch out, that he was going to do something "really big" the next day at school, and the next day at school he took his gun and his ammo and his earplugs and shot eight classmates who had clustered for a prayer meeting. Three died, and they were still children, almost. The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, "Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if he had said, `I'm going to do something really little tomorrow,'" and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme "Little and Big." He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, and so they could devote themselves to little dreams without, feeling bad about them. But how could Mister Rogers show little becoming big, and vice versa? That was a challenge. He couldn't just say it, the way he could always just say to the children who watch his program that they are special to him, or even sing it, the way he could always just sing "It's You I Like" and "Everybody's Fancy" and "It's Such a Good Feeling" and "Many Ways to Say I Love You" and "Sometimes People Are Good." No, he had to show it, he had to demonstrate it, and that's how Mister Rogers and the people who work for him eventually got the idea of coming to New York City to visit a woman named Maya Lin.
Maya Lin is a famous architect. Architects are people who create big things from the little designs they draw on pieces of paper. Most famous architects are famous for creating big famous buildings, but Maya Lin is more famous for creating big fancy things for people to look at, and in fact, when Mister Rogers had gone to her studio the day before, he looked at the pictures she had drawn of the clock that is now on the ceiling of a place in New York called Penn Station. A clock is a machine that tells people what time it is, but as Mister Rogers sat in the backseat of an old station wagon hired to take him from his apartment to Penn Station, he worried that Maya Lin's clock might be too fancy and that the children who watch the Neighborhood might not understand it. Mister Rogers always worries about things like that, because he always worries about children, and when his station wagon stopped in traffic next to a bus stop, he read aloud the advertisement of an airline trying to push its international service. "Hmmm," Mister Rogers said, "that's a strange ad. `Most people think of us as a great domestic airline. We hate that.' Hmmm. Hate is such a strong word to use so lightly. If they can hate something like that, you wonder how easy it would be for them to hate something more important." He was with his producer, Margy Whitmer. He had makeup on his face and a dollop of black dye combed into his silver hair. He was wearing beige pants, a blue dress shirt, a tie, dark socks, a pair of dark-blue boating sneakers, and a purple, zippered cardigan. He looked very little in the backseat of the car. Then the car stopped on Thirty-fourth Street, in front of the escalators leading down to the station, and when the doors opened--
"Holy shit! It's Mister Fucking Rogers!"
--he turned into Mister Fucking Rogers. This was not a bad thing, however, because he was in New York, and in New York it's not an insult to be called Mister Fucking Anything. In fact, it's an honorific. An honorific is what people call you when they respect you, and the moment Mister Rogers got out of the car, people wouldn't stay the fuck away from him, they respected him so much. Oh, Margy Whitmer tried to keep people away from him, tried to tell people that if they gave her their names and addresses, Mister Rogers would send them an autographed picture, but every time she turned around, there was Mister Rogers putting his arms around someone, or wiping the tears off someone's cheek, or passing around the picture of someone's child, or getting on his knees to talk to a child. Margy couldn't stop them, and she couldn't stop him. "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood," "Oh, Mister Rogers, you're the father I never had." "Oh, Mister Rogers, would you please just hug me?" After a while, Margy just rolled her eyes and gave up, because it's always like this with Mister Rogers, because the thing that people don't understand about him is that he's greedy for this--greedy for the grace that people offer him. What is grace? He doesn't even know. He can't define it. This is a man who loves the simplifying force of definitions, and yet all he knows of grace is how he gets it; all he knows is that he gets it from God, through man. And so in Penn Station, where he was surrounded by men and women and children, he had this power, like a comic-book superhero who absorbs the energy of others until he bursts out of his shirt.
"If Mister Fucking Rogers can tell me how to read that fucking clock, I'll watch his show every day for a fucking year--"that's what someone in the crowd said while watching Mister Rogers and Maya Lin crane their necks at Maya Lin's big fancy clock, but it didn't even matter whether Mister Rogers could read the clock or not, because every time he looked at it, with the television cameras on him, he leaned back from his waist and opened his mouth wide with astonishment, like someone trying to catch a peanut he had tossed into the air, until it became clear that Mister Rogers could show that he was astonished all day if he had to, or even forever, because Mister Rogers lives in a state of astonishment, and the astonishment he showed when he looked at the clock was the same astonishment he showed when people--absolute strangers--walked up to him and fed his hungry ear with their whispers, and he turned to me, with an open, abashed mouth, and said, "Oh, Tom, if you could only hear the stories I hear!"
ONCE UPON A TIME, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. He didn't have an umbrella, and he couldn't find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains. It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. Though of all races, the schoolchildren were mostly black and Latino, and they didn't even approach Mister Rogers and ask him for his autograph. They just sang. They sang, all at once, all together, the song he sings at the start of his program, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and turned the clattering train into a single soft, runaway choir.
HE FINDS ME, OF COURSE, AT PENN STATION. He finds me, because that's what Mister Rogers does--he looks, and then he finds. I'm standing against a wall, listening to a bunch of mooks from Long Island discuss the strange word--[Greek text cannot be converted in ASCII text]--he has written down on each of the autographs he gave them. First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace." Second mook: "Huh. That's cool. I'm glad I know that. Now, what the fuck is grace?" First mook: "Looks like you're gonna have to break down and buy a dictionary." Second mook: "Fuck that. What I'm buying is a ticket to the fucking Lotto. I just met Mister Rogers--this is definitely my lucky day." I'm listening to these guys when, from thirty feet away, I notice Mister Rogers looking around for someone and know, immediately; that he is looking for me. He is on one knee in front of a little gift who is hoarding, in her arms, a small stuffed animal, sky-blue, a bunny.
"Remind you of anyone, Tom?" he says when I approach the two of them. He is not speaking of the little girl.
"Yes, Mister Rogers."
"Looks a little bit like... Old Rabbit, doesn't it, Tom?"
"Yes, Mister Rogers."
"I thought so." Then he turns back to the little girl. "This man's name is Tom. When he was your age, he had a rabbit, too, and he loved it very much. Its name was Old Rabbit. What is yours named?"
The little girl eyes me suspiciously, and then Mister Rogers. She goes a little knock-kneed, directs a thumb toward her mouth. "Bunny Wunny," she says.
"Oh, that's a nice name," Mister Rogers says, and then goes to the Thirty-fourth Street escalator to climb it one last time for the cameras. When he reaches the street, he looks right at the lens, as he always does, and says, speaking of the Neighborhood, "Let's go back to my place," and then makes a right turn toward Seventh Avenue, except that this time he just keeps going, and suddenly Margy Whitmer is saying, "Where is Fred? Where is Fred?" and Fred, he's a hundred yards away; in his sneakers and his purple sweater, and the only thing anyone sees of him is his gray head bobbing up and down amid all the other heads, the hundreds of them, the thousands, the millions, disappearing into the city and its swelter.
ONCE UPON A TIME, a little boy with a big sword went into battle against Mister Rogers. Or maybe, if the truth be told, Mister Rogers went into battle against a little boy with a big sword, for Mister Rogers didn't like the big sword. It was one of those swords that really isn't a sword at all; it was a big plastic contraption with lights and sound effects, and it was the kind of sword used in defense of the universe by the heroes of the television shows that the little boy liked to watch. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. In fact, the little boy with the big sword didn't know who Mister Rogers was, and so when Mister Rogers knelt down in front of him, the little boy with the big sword looked past him and through him, and when Mister Rogers said, "Oh, my; that's a big sword you have," the boy didn't answer, and finally his mother got embarrassed and said, "Oh, honey, c'mon, that's Mister Rogers," and felt his head for fever. Of course, she knew who Mister Rogers was, because she had grown up with him, and she knew that he was good for her son, and so now, with her little boy zombie-eyed under his blond bangs, she apologized, saying to Mister Rogers that she knew he was in a rush and that she knew he was here in Penn Station taping his program and that her son usually wasn't like this, he was probably just tired .... Except that Mister Rogers wasn't going anywhere. Yes, sure, he was taping, and right there, in Penn Station in New York City, were throngs of other children wiggling in wait for him, but right now his patient gray eyes were fixed on the little boy with the big sword, and so he stayed there, on one knee, until the little boy's eyes finally focused on Mister Rogers, and he said, "It's not a sword; it's a death ray." A death ray! Oh, honey, Mommy knew you could do it .... And so now, encouraged, Mommy said, "Do you want to give Mister Rogers a hug, honey?" But the boy was shaking his head no, and Mister Rogers was sneaking his face past the big sword and the armor of the little boy's eyes and whispering something in his ear--something that, while not changing his mind about the hug, made the little boy look at Mister Rogers in a new way, with the eyes of a child at last, and nod his head yes.
We were heading back to his apartment in a taxi when I asked him what he had said.
"Oh, I just knew that whenever you see a little boy carrying something like that, it means that he wants to show people that he's strong on the outside."
"I just wanted to let him know that he was strong on the inside, too."
"And so that's what I told him."
"I said, `Do you know that you're strong on the inside, too?'"
"Maybe it was something he needed to hear."
HE WAS BARELY MORE THAN A BOY himself when he learned what he would be fighting for, and fighting against, for the rest of his life. He was in college. He was a music major at a small school in Florida and planning to go to seminary upon graduation. His name was Fred Rogers. He came home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, once upon a time, and his parents, because they were wealthy, had bought something new for the corner room of their big redbrick house. It was a television. Fred turned it on, and, as he says now, with plaintive distaste, "there were people throwing pies at one another." He was the soft son of overprotective parents, but he believed, right then, that he was strong enough to enter into battle with that--that machine, that medium--and to wrestle with it until it yielded to him, until the ground touched by its blue shadow became hallowed and this thing called television came to be used "for the broadcasting of grace through the land." It would not be easy, no--for in order to win such a battle, he would have to forbid himself the privilege of stopping, and whatever he did right he would have to repeat, as though he were already living in eternity. And so it was that the puppets he employed on The Children's Comer would be the puppets he employed forty-four years later, and so it was that once he took off his jacket and his shoes... well, he was Mister Rogers for good. And even now, when he is producing only three weeks' worth of new programs a year, he still winds up agonizing--agonizing--about whether to announce his theme as "Little and Big" or "Big and Little" and still makes only two edits per televised minute, because he doesn't want his message to be determined by the cuts and splices in a piece of tape--to become, despite all his fierce coherence, "a message of fragmentation."
He is losing, of course. The revolution he started--a half hour a day, five days a week--it wasn't enough, it didn't spread, and so, forced to fight his battles alone, Mister Rogers is losing, as we all are losing. He is losing to it, to our twenty-four-hour-a-day pie fight, to the dizzying cut and the disorienting edit, to the message of fragmentation, to the flicker and pulse and shudder and strobe, to the constant, hivey drone of the electroculture... and yet still he fights, deathly afraid that the medium he chose is consuming the very things he tried to protect: childhood and silence. Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television--gently; of course--to just shut up for once, and television listened. He had already won his third Daytime Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are .... Ten seconds of silence." And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, "I'll watch the time," and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked... and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds... and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children.
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a little boy born blind, and so, defenseless in the world, he suffered the abuses of the defenseless, and when he grew up and became a man, he looked back and realized that he'd had no childhood at all, and that if he were ever to have a childhood, he would have to start having it now, in his forties. So the first thing he did was rechristen himself "Joybubbles"; the second thing he did was declare himself five years old forever; and the third thing he did was make a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, where the University of Pittsburgh's Information Sciences Library keeps a Mister Rogers archive. It has all 865 programs, in both color and black and white, and for two months this past spring, Joybubbles went to the library every day for ten hours and watched the Neighborhood's every episode, plus specials--or, since he is blind, listened to every episode, imagined every episode. Until one night, Mister Rogers came to him, in what he calls a visitation--"I was dreaming, but I was awake"--and offered to teach him how to pray.
"But Mister Rogers, I can't pray," Joybubbles said, "because every time I try to pray, I forget the words."
"I know that," Mister Rogers said, "and that's why the prayer I'm going to teach you has only three words."
"What prayer is that, Mister Rogers? What kind of prayer has only three words?"
"Thank you, God," Mister Rogers said.
THE WALLS OF MISTER ROGERS' Neighborhood are light blue and fleeced with clouds. They are tall--as tall as the cinder-block walls they are designed to hide--and they encompass the Neighborhood's entire stage set, from the flimsy yellow house where Mister Rogers comes to visit, to the closet where he finds his sweaters, to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where he goes to dream. The blue walls are the ends of the daylit universe he has made, and yet Mister Rogers can't see them--or at least can't know them--because he was born blind to color. He doesn't know the color of his walls, and one day when I caught him looking toward his painted skies, I asked him to tell me what color they are, and he said, "I imagine they're blue, Tom." Then he looked at me and smiled. "I imagine they're blue."
He has spent thirty-one years imagining and reimagining those walls--the walls that have both penned him in and set him free. You would think it would be easy by now, being Mister Rogers; you would think that one morning he would wake up and think, Okay, all I have to do is be nice for my allotted half hour today, and then I'll just take the rest of the day off. .... But no, Mister Rogers is a stubborn man, and so on the day I ask about the color of his sky, he has already gotten up at five-thirty, already prayed for those who have asked for his prayers, already read, already written, already swum, already weighed himself, already sent out cards for the birthdays he never forgets, already called any number of people who depend on him for comfort, already cried when he read the letter of a mother whose child was buried with a picture of Mister Rogers in his casket, already played for twenty minutes with an autistic boy who has come, with his father, all the way from Boise, Idaho, to meet him. The boy had never spoken, until one day he said, "X the Owl," which is the name of one of Mister Rogers's puppets, and he had never looked his father in the eye until one day his father had said, "Let's go to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe," and now the boy is speaking and reading, and the father has come to thank Mister Rogers for saving his son's life .... And by this time, well, it's nine-thirty in the morning, time for Mister Rogers to take off his jacket and his shoes and put on his sweater and his sneakers and start taping another visit to the Neighborhood. He writes all his own scripts, but on this day when he receives a visit from Mrs. McFeely and a springer spaniel, she says that she has to bring the dog "back to his owner," and Mister Rogers makes a face. The cameras stop, and he says, "I don't like the word owner there. It's not a good word. Let's change it to 'bring the dog home.'" And so the change is made, and the taping resumes, and this is how it goes all day a life unfolding within a clasp of unfathomable governance, and once, when I lose sight of him, I ask Margy Whitmer where he is, and she says, "Right over your shoulder, where he always is," and when I turn around, Mister Rogers is facing me, child-stealthy with a small black camera in his hand, to take another picture for the album that he will give me when I take my leave of him.
Yes, it should be easy being Mister Rogers, but when four o'clock rolls around, well, Mister Rogers is tired, and so he sneaks over to the piano and starts playing, with dexterous, pale fingers, the music that used to end a 1940s newsreel and that has now become the music he plays to signal to the cast and crew that a day's taping has wrapped. On this day, however, he is premature by a considerable extent, and so Margy, who has been with Mister Rogers since 1983--because nobody who works for Mister Rogers ever leaves the Neighborhood--comes running over, papers in hand, and says, "Not so fast there, buster."
"Oh, please, sister," Mister Rogers says. "I'm done."
And now Margy comes up behind him and massages his shoulders. "No, you're not," she says. "Roy Rogers is done. Mister Rogers still has a ways to go."
HE WAS A CHILD ONCE, TOO, and so one day I asked him if I could go with him back to Latrobe. He thought about it for a second, then said, by way of agreement, "Okay then-tomorrow, Tom, I'll show you childhood." Not his childhood, mind you, or even a childhood--no, just "childhood." And so the next morning, we swam together, and then he put back on his boxer shorts and the dark socks, and the T-shirt, and the gray trousers, and the belt, and then the white dress shirt and the black bow tie and the gray suit jacket, and about two hours later we were pulling up to the big brick house on Weldon Street in Latrobe, and Mister Rogers was thinking about going inside.
There was nobody home. The doors were open, unlocked, because the house was undergoing a renovation of some kind, but the owners were away, and Mister Rogers's boyhood home was empty of everyone but workmen. "Do you think we can go in?" he asked Bill Isler, president of Family Communications, the company that produces Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Bill had driven us there, and now, sitting behind the wheel of his red Grand Cherokee, he was full of remonstrance. "No!" he said. "Fred, they're not home. If we wanted to go into the house, we should have called first. Fred..." But Mister Rogers was out of the car, with his camera in his hand and his legs moving so fast that the material of his gray suit pants furled and unfurled around both of his skinny legs, like flags exploding in a breeze. And here, as he made his way through thickets of bewildered workmen--this skinny old man dressed in a gray suit and a bow tie, with his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo, like a dance instructor--there was some kind of wiggly jazz in his legs, and he went flying all around the outside of the house, pointing at windows, saying there was the room where he learned to play the piano, and there was the room where he saw the pie fight on a primitive television, and there was the room where his beloved father died... until finally we reached the front door. He put his hand on the knob; he cracked it open, but then, with Bill Isler calling caution from the car, he said, "Maybe we shouldn't go in. And all the people who made this house special to me are not here, anyway. They're all in heaven."
And so we went to the graveyard. We were heading there all along, because Mister Rogers loves graveyards, and so as we took the long, straight road out of sad, fading Latrobe, you could still feel the speed in him, the hurry, as he mustered up a sad anticipation, and when we passed through the cemetery gates, he smiled as he said to Bill Isler, "The plot's at the end of the yellow-brick road." And so it was; the asphalt ended, and then we began bouncing over a road of old blond bricks, until even that road ended, and we were parked in front of the place where Mister Rogers is to be buried. He got out of the car, and, moving as quickly as he had moved to the door of his house, he stepped up a small hill to the door of a large gray mausoleum, a huge structure built for six, with a slightly peaked roof, and bronze doors, and angels living in the stained glass. He peeked in the window, and in the same voice he uses on television, that voice, at once so patient and so eager, he pointed out each crypt, saying, "There's my father, and there's my mother, and there, on the left, is my place, and right across will be Joanne. .... " The window was of darkened glass, though, and so to see through it, we had to press our faces close against it, and where the glass had warped away from the frame of the door--where there was a finger-wide crack--Mister Rogers's voice leaked into his grave, and came back to us as a soft, hollow echo.
And then he was on the move again, happily, quickly, for he would not leave until he showed me all the places of all those who'd loved him into being. His grandfather, his grandmother, his uncles, his aunts, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, even his family's servants--he went to each grave, and spoke their names, and told their stories, until finally I headed back down to the Jeep and turned back around to see Mister Rogers standing high on a green dell, smiling among the stones. "And now if you don't mind," he said without a hint of shame or embarrassment, "I have to go find a place to relieve myself," and then off he went, this ecstatic ascetic, to take a proud piss in his corner of heaven.
ONCE UPON A TIME, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn't want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, "The connections we make in the course of a life--maybe that's what heaven is, Tom. We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us--I've just met you, but I'm invested in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it."
The next afternoon, I went to his office in Pittsburgh. He was sitting on a couch, under a framed rendering of the Greek word for grace and a biblical phrase written in Hebrew that means "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." A woman was with him, sitting in a big chair. Her name was Deb. She was very pretty. She had a long face and a dark blush to her skin. She had curls in her hair and stars at the centers of her eyes. She was a minister at Fred Rogers's church. She spent much of her time tending to the sick and the dying. Fred Rogers loved her very much, and so, out of nowhere, he smiled and put his hand over hers. "Will you be with me when I die?" he asked her, and when she said yes, he said, "Oh, thank you, my dear." Then, with his hand still over hers and his eyes looking straight into hers, he said, "Deb, do you know what a great prayer you are? Do you know that about yourself? Your prayers are just wonderful." Then he looked at me. I was sitting in a small chair by the door, and he said, "Tom, would you close the door, please?" I closed the door and sat back down. "Thanks, my dear," he said to me, then turned back to Deb. "Now, Deb, I'd like to ask you a favor," he said. "Would you lead us? Would you lead us in prayer?"
Deb stiffened for a second, and she let out a breath, and her color got deeper. "Oh, I don't know, Fred," she said. "I don't know if I want to put on a performance. ..."
Fred never stopped looking at her or let go of her hand. "It's not a performance. It's just a meeting of friends," he said. He moved his hand from her wrist to her palm and extended his other hand to me. I took it, and then put my hand around her free hand. His hand was warm, hers was cool, and we bowed our heads, and closed our eyes, and I heard Deb's voice calling out for the grace of God. What is grace? I'm not certain; all I know is that my heart felt like a spike, and then, in that room, it opened and felt like an umbrella. I had never prayed like that before, ever. I had always been a great prayer, a powerful one, but only fitfully, only out of guilt, only when fear and desperation drove me to it... and it hit me, right then, with my eyes closed, that this was the moment Fred Rogers--Mister Rogers--had been leading me to from the moment he answered the door of his apartment in his bathrobe and asked me about Old Rabbit. Once upon a time, you see, I lost something, and prayed to get it back, but when I lost it the second time, I didn't, and now this was it, the missing word, the unuttered promise, the prayer I'd been waiting to say a very long time.
"Thank you, God," Mister Rogers said
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Valentine's Day
In honor of Valentine's Day I thought I would list some of my favorite Romantic songs:
In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)
I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen)
Bad (U2)
Till Kingdom Come (Coldplay)
Don't Dream It's Over(Crowded House)
Sleep Walk (Santo and Johnny)
Turn Me On tied with Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
We've Got Tonight (Bob Seger)
As We Go Along (The Monkees)
I'm Gonna Crawl (Led Zeppelin)
Wicked Game (Chris Isaac)
Crazy For You (Madonna)
Time After Time (Cindi Lauper)
I Only Have Eyes For You (The Flamingos)
I'm In Love With A Girl (Big Star)
In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)
I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen)
Bad (U2)
Till Kingdom Come (Coldplay)
Don't Dream It's Over(Crowded House)
Sleep Walk (Santo and Johnny)
Turn Me On tied with Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
We've Got Tonight (Bob Seger)
As We Go Along (The Monkees)
I'm Gonna Crawl (Led Zeppelin)
Wicked Game (Chris Isaac)
Crazy For You (Madonna)
Time After Time (Cindi Lauper)
I Only Have Eyes For You (The Flamingos)
I'm In Love With A Girl (Big Star)
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Pee Wee
Last night we got to see the Pee Wee Herman Show. The venue was nice, we were on the third row in the center. The night began with Pee Wee coming out in front of the curtain with a "Good morning, boys and girls" and then asked us to stand and recite the pledge of allegiance. So great. Then the lights and music started, the curtain opened and the lights came up on Pee Wee's playhouse. The playhouse. The big red zig zag door, Chairry, Globey, Conkey, Clockey all right there, bigger than life. Those images are so imbedded in my mind from watching the show every Saturday morning with my bowl of cereal, that I actually got choked up when it was revealed.
The show was a mix of his original stage show, Pee Wee's Playhouse and new material. So much fun. He is still so delightful, like a bit where he blows up a huge balloon and then slowly, for what felt like 5 minutes, squeezes the air out making all the squeeking balloon noises he can. There was a couple to the left of me at the show and afterwards as we talked about it, I found out she was from another country and had never seen anything Pee Wee before. I asked her what she thought and she seemed so weirded out and mentioned the balloon moment as one she didn't get and didn't like the noise. I guess this is where loving Pee Wee's childlike glee is helpful - it's fantastic seeing him indulge in being irreverent and silly and indulging along with him.
After the show, those who had bought tickets for the show when it was being sold for a shorter run at a different venue and then had to exchange their tickets in a ticketmaster nightmare got to stay for a Q&A with Paul Reubens. This is where I further gained appreciation for Paul. He spent like an hour talking to the group. He took stupid, annoying question after stupid, annoying question, dealt with the fanish, drunks and still came out with humor and genuineness. He really seemed to be trying to connect with the audience and speak sincerely. He told "Hollywood stories" about a Halloween with Prince and several others great little Hollywood memories he had. He made sure to go up to the kids that remained in the audience and ask them what they liked about the show (he took out questionable material, so the show would be appropriate for all ages, by the way). I didn't want to dwell on the negative, but there were the most annoying, loud, drunk idiots next to us in the audience last night, who we had to work really hard to try to ignore. There were also a ton of idiots in the Q&A portion asking the most stupid, fanish, embarassing questions and just generally acting like brainless buffoons. But despite this, it was a great experience.
The last thing he shared with us is that every night standing back stage, he watches the camera monitors as the curtains open and the audience sees the set for the first time and he gets choked up and said he almost feels like he can't go on stage because he's so moved. How rad is that? He said he was sorry for being "corny" as he thanked us, but that he is "corny". I love that. We need more corny in this world. Someone earlier in the audience had asked him why he married the fruit salad (from the tv show back in the day) and he said that people shouldn't think so much, some things are just for fun. Pee Wee is all about creativity and silliness. He is about fun. We had fun. And yes, FUN was the secret word of the day.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Crayola
I loved coloring as a little kid and even a not so little kid. What was better than getting a brand new box of sharp Crayola crayons? My sister and I would spend hours on our bellies coloring, especially Barbie coloring books (duh). So it was fun to see this Crayons post today. They had this chart that shows how many new colors have been created over the years.
There were also these links that show a list of all the Crayola colors that have existed. I thought it was interesting to see the colors that have been retired as well, like raw umber, maize and thistle. I used the crap out of maize for Barbie's hair and I always thought thistle was so pretty.
Chronology of Crayons
Wikipedia list of colors
Anyway, the point of this post is: crayons are cool.
There were also these links that show a list of all the Crayola colors that have existed. I thought it was interesting to see the colors that have been retired as well, like raw umber, maize and thistle. I used the crap out of maize for Barbie's hair and I always thought thistle was so pretty.
Chronology of Crayons
Wikipedia list of colors
Anyway, the point of this post is: crayons are cool.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Peter Pan
Oh, man, for some reason this killed me. Watch to the end.
This Is Disastrous, You Should Watch It of the Day: Opening night of Greenport High’s 2009 production of Peter Pan could’ve used a few less happy thoughts, and a few more happy landings.
(courtesy The Daily What)
This Is Disastrous, You Should Watch It of the Day: Opening night of Greenport High’s 2009 production of Peter Pan could’ve used a few less happy thoughts, and a few more happy landings.
(courtesy The Daily What)
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Christmas in the SLC
Well, I'm back to work after a nice long holiday break (well, long, but never long enough). This was the first year that Whit and my families weren't living in the same state and therefore the beginning of switching off years in Utah and California. This year we went up to Salt Lake City to celebrate Christmas with my family. We headed up on Wednesday the 23rd. It was crazy to board our plane in sunny Long Beach, close the shades, watch some tv, eat some Doritos mix, drink some ginger ale, then open the shades and descend into a completely snow covered land.
We headed up to the Kleins household and spent time with the parents, then Whit and I went down to Provo to have lunch with his grandparents. It was good to see them again and have some time together. Then while we were down there, we went to Payson to visit with my friends Darci and Ben and their two little ones, Riley and Malia. They have a beautiful home they designed and built there and they had the hugest Christmas tree ever. I hadn't met their little baby girl yet, so I was so glad to finally see her. Riley is a hilarious, dramatic kid. I'm always so happy to see the Cooks. They are the best. In the evening we got together with our dear ATP friend, Classie, and ate some curry. It's always great to see her and good to know she's doing well and happy, then we ended the day by finally seeing Precious at the ol' Broadway cinemas.
Thursday we saw Elizabeth at Channel 2, then headed over to a new restaurant (well new to us) called Acme Burger to have lunch with our friends, Joel and Patty Huff. They are great. They live in Chicago, so we were thrilled to meet up with them. And may I add the burgers were so good. We had a plate with three little burgers: one was lamb with a carrot/raisin chutney (my favorite - so yummy), one was bison (also great) and the third was elk (meh). Fun place. Then Whit and I headed back the Broadway to see The Road. Really good movie, mega frightening, Viggo is so cool.
That night we had our traditional Christmas Eve program with my parents and Elizabeth. We shared stories and sang Christmas hymns around the fire. It was really nice - glad we could be there for it.
Next morning Elizabeth, Jerad, Alex and Dylan came up for Christmas. We opened gifts (everyone is way too generous) in a frenzy and then ate a turkey lunch with all the fixins. It was filling and delish. Then after the sibs left, it was quiet. Whit watched basketball (thank goodness there was a game on ABC as there's no cable at my parents' house) and I took a nap (I never take naps, but when in Rome).
The next day (Saturday) we headed out to Sandy to spend the day/night at the Nighs'. They got the wii for Christmas along with wii Mario Bros. and it was so fun. That game was making us laugh so much - four people can play at a time and it was chaos as all the little characters try to stay alive ("You'll kill us all!"). We also played a super fun board game, which I had never played, Aggravation. It was really aggravating, but a great game and little Dylan won. Speaking of little Dylan, he is taller every time I see him, but still sweet and funny. We picked up Cafe Rio for dinner - I sort of forget until I start eating it again, but man, that salad with the sweet pork is so yummy.
We stayed the night and in the morning Whit played Lego Batman with Dylan for a couple of hours, then we went to IHOP for breakfast - pumpkin pancakes? Yes, please.
It was really fun hanging out with Eliz. and the Nighs and playing games, good times.
Sunday was also our 7th Anniversary. Times flies. We thought we'd do something special, so after seeing my parents and saying our goodbye's to my dad, we went to the Inn on Capitol Hill for the night. This is where we had our wedding reception and we hadn't been back since then. The lady at the inn upgraded us to a room of our choice when she heard, so we stayed in such a gorgeous room. It had its own deck with had a view of the whole city. We could see the temple a glow. We had a warm fire place, plush bathrobes, huge jet tub - all really perfect. We didn't really want to go anywhere for dinner, so after lots of attempts, we found a pizza place that was open and had a really yummy pizza delivered and watched Dumb and Dumber while we ate. It really was a fantastic anniversary - nothing better than chillin' with my baby.
The next morning my mom drove us to the airport and we were on our way back to California.
I'm sorry for those friends we couldn't see this trip - Joseph Clayton and Liz & Dave but as is usual the days always go too quickly. But I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday. I'm really glad for the people we could see and grateful for all the hospitality we were shown.
The greatest thing about coming home was knowing I had a whole extra week off of work - thank you WB. So this last week we continued work on the apartment - still lots more I want to do - painting and decorating mostly - and we saw more movies from the expansive list we had. We saw: The Lovely Bones (disappointingly just ok), Avatar (I'm afraid I liked it less than everyone I was with - it was cool looking, but meh), The Young Victoria (so fantastic) - I think all we have left that we'd like to see is Sherlock Holmes, Nine and Crazy Heart. As I was a little under the weather I also caught up on a lot of movies I had had on my dvr for way too long: By the People: The Election of Barrack Obama (really interesting and rejuvenating), American Gangster (pretty good), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (can't believe I had never seen it) and finally, embarassingly, Schindler's List - obviously, it's so amazing - much more uplifting than I had anticipated - what great performances. We also watched our netflicks, The Last Hangman aka Pierrepoint starring my favorite actress, Juliet Stevenson and one of Whit's favorite actors, Timothy Spall. Oh, and last night I finished up Chinatown - enjoyed it, who knew Jack Nicholson was so hot back then? So it was a movie filled break, which is fine by me, we gotta enjoy it while we're young and childless.
I hope 2010 is a fantastic year. I feel in a good place - I've got a great family who are all relatively healthy; I've got a fun new apartment which is so nice to come home to; I'm in a good ward with new friendships blossoming; I am so lucky to have my job at a great company with fantastic bosses; I am healthy; I have a wonderful husband who is funny, talented, interesting and I love hanging out with every day. So here's to 2010 - let the good times roll (and hopefully let a baby bounce!)
We headed up to the Kleins household and spent time with the parents, then Whit and I went down to Provo to have lunch with his grandparents. It was good to see them again and have some time together. Then while we were down there, we went to Payson to visit with my friends Darci and Ben and their two little ones, Riley and Malia. They have a beautiful home they designed and built there and they had the hugest Christmas tree ever. I hadn't met their little baby girl yet, so I was so glad to finally see her. Riley is a hilarious, dramatic kid. I'm always so happy to see the Cooks. They are the best. In the evening we got together with our dear ATP friend, Classie, and ate some curry. It's always great to see her and good to know she's doing well and happy, then we ended the day by finally seeing Precious at the ol' Broadway cinemas.
Thursday we saw Elizabeth at Channel 2, then headed over to a new restaurant (well new to us) called Acme Burger to have lunch with our friends, Joel and Patty Huff. They are great. They live in Chicago, so we were thrilled to meet up with them. And may I add the burgers were so good. We had a plate with three little burgers: one was lamb with a carrot/raisin chutney (my favorite - so yummy), one was bison (also great) and the third was elk (meh). Fun place. Then Whit and I headed back the Broadway to see The Road. Really good movie, mega frightening, Viggo is so cool.
That night we had our traditional Christmas Eve program with my parents and Elizabeth. We shared stories and sang Christmas hymns around the fire. It was really nice - glad we could be there for it.
Next morning Elizabeth, Jerad, Alex and Dylan came up for Christmas. We opened gifts (everyone is way too generous) in a frenzy and then ate a turkey lunch with all the fixins. It was filling and delish. Then after the sibs left, it was quiet. Whit watched basketball (thank goodness there was a game on ABC as there's no cable at my parents' house) and I took a nap (I never take naps, but when in Rome).
The next day (Saturday) we headed out to Sandy to spend the day/night at the Nighs'. They got the wii for Christmas along with wii Mario Bros. and it was so fun. That game was making us laugh so much - four people can play at a time and it was chaos as all the little characters try to stay alive ("You'll kill us all!"). We also played a super fun board game, which I had never played, Aggravation. It was really aggravating, but a great game and little Dylan won. Speaking of little Dylan, he is taller every time I see him, but still sweet and funny. We picked up Cafe Rio for dinner - I sort of forget until I start eating it again, but man, that salad with the sweet pork is so yummy.
We stayed the night and in the morning Whit played Lego Batman with Dylan for a couple of hours, then we went to IHOP for breakfast - pumpkin pancakes? Yes, please.
It was really fun hanging out with Eliz. and the Nighs and playing games, good times.
Sunday was also our 7th Anniversary. Times flies. We thought we'd do something special, so after seeing my parents and saying our goodbye's to my dad, we went to the Inn on Capitol Hill for the night. This is where we had our wedding reception and we hadn't been back since then. The lady at the inn upgraded us to a room of our choice when she heard, so we stayed in such a gorgeous room. It had its own deck with had a view of the whole city. We could see the temple a glow. We had a warm fire place, plush bathrobes, huge jet tub - all really perfect. We didn't really want to go anywhere for dinner, so after lots of attempts, we found a pizza place that was open and had a really yummy pizza delivered and watched Dumb and Dumber while we ate. It really was a fantastic anniversary - nothing better than chillin' with my baby.
The next morning my mom drove us to the airport and we were on our way back to California.
I'm sorry for those friends we couldn't see this trip - Joseph Clayton and Liz & Dave but as is usual the days always go too quickly. But I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday. I'm really glad for the people we could see and grateful for all the hospitality we were shown.
The greatest thing about coming home was knowing I had a whole extra week off of work - thank you WB. So this last week we continued work on the apartment - still lots more I want to do - painting and decorating mostly - and we saw more movies from the expansive list we had. We saw: The Lovely Bones (disappointingly just ok), Avatar (I'm afraid I liked it less than everyone I was with - it was cool looking, but meh), The Young Victoria (so fantastic) - I think all we have left that we'd like to see is Sherlock Holmes, Nine and Crazy Heart. As I was a little under the weather I also caught up on a lot of movies I had had on my dvr for way too long: By the People: The Election of Barrack Obama (really interesting and rejuvenating), American Gangster (pretty good), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (can't believe I had never seen it) and finally, embarassingly, Schindler's List - obviously, it's so amazing - much more uplifting than I had anticipated - what great performances. We also watched our netflicks, The Last Hangman aka Pierrepoint starring my favorite actress, Juliet Stevenson and one of Whit's favorite actors, Timothy Spall. Oh, and last night I finished up Chinatown - enjoyed it, who knew Jack Nicholson was so hot back then? So it was a movie filled break, which is fine by me, we gotta enjoy it while we're young and childless.
I hope 2010 is a fantastic year. I feel in a good place - I've got a great family who are all relatively healthy; I've got a fun new apartment which is so nice to come home to; I'm in a good ward with new friendships blossoming; I am so lucky to have my job at a great company with fantastic bosses; I am healthy; I have a wonderful husband who is funny, talented, interesting and I love hanging out with every day. So here's to 2010 - let the good times roll (and hopefully let a baby bounce!)
Monday, December 21, 2009
Resolution
I've never been a big new year's resolution person, I mean I always say I want to get more in shape, but then I think about that throughout the whole year, and really there's a lot of things I'd like to improve, but last night I did think of a resolution I'd like to make.
It's been way busy lately, just work, church, Christmas prep, etc. and last night I was in the midst of feeling run down and just going from one task to another with my mind continually thinking of what I needed to do next. I was washing dishes, my brain fried, my eyes red, my shoulders sagged and I plunged my hand into a bowl to rub out the remaining chocolate frosting in the sink and I suddenly realized squishing the chocolate and dish water in my hands felt good. My mind went back to my movement classes in college where we constantly explored the senses. We would crawl and dig in dirt and mess and enjoy that feeling. We would feel and smell each other's sweat as we danced and rolled around the studio. There was one class where we spread out around campus and were given a spot to stay in and observe - for a whole class period I crouched, crawled, climbed and got to know every nuance of an old, non-functioning fountain under the stairs of a building in bare feet and yoga pants.
One particularly intense class was filled with sensory experiences after being pushed to our physical limits, holding large rocks in the air until we thought our arms would fall off. Covered in muck and sweat, we had to hold a peeled hard-boiled egg in our mouth. We covered the floor in rose petals and balanced trays of water over our heads and finally poured the cold water on ourselves. This may all sound sort of ridiculous, but our senses were awakened in Jerry Gardner's movement classes - we were pushed to our limits physically and emotionally and, of course, as an actor your senses need to be absolutely, intensely alive.
I have four years to look back on of intense feelings, of daily being pushed and learning to rip open my chest and leave all insecurities, fear and embarassment at the door and it was the greatest four years of my life. But I graduated, what like four year ago? So last night as I exhaustedly stood at my kitchen sink I knew I wanted to resolve to be creative again. This doesn't mean I am going to quit my job and start performing Butoh in the streets, but I can try to regulary explore and refresh my senses. I still love reading and this is certainly satisfying and I love going for walks, but want to do that more.
I want to write. I have started little projects here and there, but let things fall to the wayside, I want to get back into it, not because I think I will pen the next greatest novel or screenplay, but because it is satisfying to the soul.
I want to play more piano and try to approach it from a more creative direction. I am good at sight reading, I enjoy playing, but my piano playing has become too functional - I play to accompany singers and choirs and even to accompany my own singing, but I want to maybe try writing some music and just get back to spending long evenings playing.
Basically I just want to be more pointed in a creative direction and remember that at heart I am creative. I really do forget this in the daily routines of working in an office and trying to keep up with housework and church responsibilities. My life is good and I am lucky that I enjoy my job and love my husband and my home, but I just think I would be more fun, interesting, fulfilled and have more to offer if I gave a little more focus to my creative side to balance out my anal/type-A side, because it would be easy to let this side of me take over, but I like the balanced me more.
Last night I also remembered a wonderful talk given by one of the leaders in my church, and a German (represent!), Dieter F. Uchtdorf, where he talked about being creative. He talked about the fact that we are here to find joy and one way to do this is through creating. We are children "of the most creative Being in the universe. Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination...The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty..."
I don't usually get churchy on my blog - but I do love that he is a proponent of creativity. Life should be full and rich, but we just need to take the time to break out of our routines and explore. So that's my new year's resolution. I guess I should resolve to be less long-winded when writing a blog entry too, I guess this makes up for the neglect my blog has seen lately.
Wednesday we head up to Salt Lake City - I'm excited for a white Christmas. Happy Holidays and here's to 2010!
It's been way busy lately, just work, church, Christmas prep, etc. and last night I was in the midst of feeling run down and just going from one task to another with my mind continually thinking of what I needed to do next. I was washing dishes, my brain fried, my eyes red, my shoulders sagged and I plunged my hand into a bowl to rub out the remaining chocolate frosting in the sink and I suddenly realized squishing the chocolate and dish water in my hands felt good. My mind went back to my movement classes in college where we constantly explored the senses. We would crawl and dig in dirt and mess and enjoy that feeling. We would feel and smell each other's sweat as we danced and rolled around the studio. There was one class where we spread out around campus and were given a spot to stay in and observe - for a whole class period I crouched, crawled, climbed and got to know every nuance of an old, non-functioning fountain under the stairs of a building in bare feet and yoga pants.
One particularly intense class was filled with sensory experiences after being pushed to our physical limits, holding large rocks in the air until we thought our arms would fall off. Covered in muck and sweat, we had to hold a peeled hard-boiled egg in our mouth. We covered the floor in rose petals and balanced trays of water over our heads and finally poured the cold water on ourselves. This may all sound sort of ridiculous, but our senses were awakened in Jerry Gardner's movement classes - we were pushed to our limits physically and emotionally and, of course, as an actor your senses need to be absolutely, intensely alive.
I have four years to look back on of intense feelings, of daily being pushed and learning to rip open my chest and leave all insecurities, fear and embarassment at the door and it was the greatest four years of my life. But I graduated, what like four year ago? So last night as I exhaustedly stood at my kitchen sink I knew I wanted to resolve to be creative again. This doesn't mean I am going to quit my job and start performing Butoh in the streets, but I can try to regulary explore and refresh my senses. I still love reading and this is certainly satisfying and I love going for walks, but want to do that more.
I want to write. I have started little projects here and there, but let things fall to the wayside, I want to get back into it, not because I think I will pen the next greatest novel or screenplay, but because it is satisfying to the soul.
I want to play more piano and try to approach it from a more creative direction. I am good at sight reading, I enjoy playing, but my piano playing has become too functional - I play to accompany singers and choirs and even to accompany my own singing, but I want to maybe try writing some music and just get back to spending long evenings playing.
Basically I just want to be more pointed in a creative direction and remember that at heart I am creative. I really do forget this in the daily routines of working in an office and trying to keep up with housework and church responsibilities. My life is good and I am lucky that I enjoy my job and love my husband and my home, but I just think I would be more fun, interesting, fulfilled and have more to offer if I gave a little more focus to my creative side to balance out my anal/type-A side, because it would be easy to let this side of me take over, but I like the balanced me more.
Last night I also remembered a wonderful talk given by one of the leaders in my church, and a German (represent!), Dieter F. Uchtdorf, where he talked about being creative. He talked about the fact that we are here to find joy and one way to do this is through creating. We are children "of the most creative Being in the universe. Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination...The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty..."
I don't usually get churchy on my blog - but I do love that he is a proponent of creativity. Life should be full and rich, but we just need to take the time to break out of our routines and explore. So that's my new year's resolution. I guess I should resolve to be less long-winded when writing a blog entry too, I guess this makes up for the neglect my blog has seen lately.
Wednesday we head up to Salt Lake City - I'm excited for a white Christmas. Happy Holidays and here's to 2010!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Catch Up
My blog has definitely been neglected as of late, so I thought I'd do a quick little catch up of my life.
Thanksgiving was great. We stayed in So Cal and had Thanksgiving with Whit's family and family friends. The food was wonderful. I made two chocolate pecan pies. I've made this pie in years past and will continue to make it because it is oh so yummy. After lunch we saw what was one of my favorite movies of the year, The Incredible Mr. Fox. We all loved it. So super funny, pretty perfect, really couldn't have enjoyed it more.
Thanksgiving weekend was also big because we moved into a new apartment. We'd been in our one bedroom apartment since we moved to California four years ago, so it was time. The apartment we found is like 2 and 1/2 bedrooms. There's the master, a guest bedroom and then a little half room off of the master which makes a perfect office. There are hardwood floors in the living room, dining room and master bedroom. We have a patio/deck which we'll be able to barbecue on, sit on, enjoy. The kitchen is way bigger than my old kitchen, spacey and light. One of the biggest upgrades is we have our own washer and dryer! I can't tell you how great this will be, no more sharing laundry facilities for us! Another huge upgrade is that we now have a garage - all our storage can go in there. Our building is just five units, super quiet, in a great neighborhood and it is about two blocks from Warner Bros. - meaning I now walk to work! It feels more like a home. There's still more unpacking/cleaning/organizing to do, but I already love it.
We had gone to Disneyland on our birthday in November, but we just got two free passes from some friends who couldn't use them, so we went to Disneyland again this week. I really feel so spoiled to have gone to Disneyland three times this Fall/Winter - it's crazy. I don't know that I'd ever been there during Christmastime and it was absolutely beautiful. They had white/bluish dangling lights on Sleeping Beauty's castle which were so magical. It's A Small World also gets all decked out for Christmas - it was covered in colored lights - we were just getting onto our boat when they lit it up and it was so exciting. The inside is also completely winterized and I loved it. The night before going to Disneyland we went to The Princess and the Frog. It was a lot of fun, really good music, just a solid classic princess Disney movie. It's just so smart of Disney to make a movie set in New Orleans to tie in to New Orleans Square at D-land. They have a little show with the characters on the Mark Twain riverboat - we heard those songs so many times that day and I loved it every time.
Other than that, just been keeping busy, trying to get Christmas shopping done, the apartment done, working, there's all of a sudden a lot of movies I want to see, church stuff always to do, TV watchin', baking I wanna do, and now I'm off to get my eyebrows done!
One week from today we fly up to Utah for Christmas. I'm really excited to spend time with my family, to see some snow, eat some good food, see friends and reminisce over Utah times past.
Thanksgiving was great. We stayed in So Cal and had Thanksgiving with Whit's family and family friends. The food was wonderful. I made two chocolate pecan pies. I've made this pie in years past and will continue to make it because it is oh so yummy. After lunch we saw what was one of my favorite movies of the year, The Incredible Mr. Fox. We all loved it. So super funny, pretty perfect, really couldn't have enjoyed it more.
Thanksgiving weekend was also big because we moved into a new apartment. We'd been in our one bedroom apartment since we moved to California four years ago, so it was time. The apartment we found is like 2 and 1/2 bedrooms. There's the master, a guest bedroom and then a little half room off of the master which makes a perfect office. There are hardwood floors in the living room, dining room and master bedroom. We have a patio/deck which we'll be able to barbecue on, sit on, enjoy. The kitchen is way bigger than my old kitchen, spacey and light. One of the biggest upgrades is we have our own washer and dryer! I can't tell you how great this will be, no more sharing laundry facilities for us! Another huge upgrade is that we now have a garage - all our storage can go in there. Our building is just five units, super quiet, in a great neighborhood and it is about two blocks from Warner Bros. - meaning I now walk to work! It feels more like a home. There's still more unpacking/cleaning/organizing to do, but I already love it.
We had gone to Disneyland on our birthday in November, but we just got two free passes from some friends who couldn't use them, so we went to Disneyland again this week. I really feel so spoiled to have gone to Disneyland three times this Fall/Winter - it's crazy. I don't know that I'd ever been there during Christmastime and it was absolutely beautiful. They had white/bluish dangling lights on Sleeping Beauty's castle which were so magical. It's A Small World also gets all decked out for Christmas - it was covered in colored lights - we were just getting onto our boat when they lit it up and it was so exciting. The inside is also completely winterized and I loved it. The night before going to Disneyland we went to The Princess and the Frog. It was a lot of fun, really good music, just a solid classic princess Disney movie. It's just so smart of Disney to make a movie set in New Orleans to tie in to New Orleans Square at D-land. They have a little show with the characters on the Mark Twain riverboat - we heard those songs so many times that day and I loved it every time.
Other than that, just been keeping busy, trying to get Christmas shopping done, the apartment done, working, there's all of a sudden a lot of movies I want to see, church stuff always to do, TV watchin', baking I wanna do, and now I'm off to get my eyebrows done!
One week from today we fly up to Utah for Christmas. I'm really excited to spend time with my family, to see some snow, eat some good food, see friends and reminisce over Utah times past.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
30
Well, it's official. There's no going back. I am thirty.
This is the first birthday where my age freaked me out a little. I know I'm still young and I think the 30's will be great, but hitting the big landmark ages still makes you take stock a bit more than usual. But, I did have a great birthday weekend.
Saturday night Whit and I went to our birthday/Halloween party at Whit's parents' house. We all dressed up as fable/nursery rhyme characters. Eric was the Farmer from Farmer and the Dell, Carol was the Muffin Man, Chelsea and Grant were Goldilocks and Papa Bear, Brighton and Jordan were Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Whit was the craziest little boy blue ever and I was Little Miss Muffet (you can't quite see in the picture, but I had spider bites all over). We had a great meal: chili, spider bread, cupcakes etc., we played games and watched a scary movie, Let the Right One In. Whit and I had seen the movie already, but we wanted everyone to see it, because it is a really cool Swedish vampire movie.
Sunday we had brunch with some friends at the Griddle - the hugest pancakes ever. Then Sunday night Whit and I headed to Anaheim. We had dinner at ESPN zone, shopped Downtown Disney, watched the fireworks poolside at our hotel, then just took it easy in our room.
Monday was Disneyland! We both got in for free as it was our birthday. Such a great promotion. It was a perfect day, great weather, small crowds, got on all the rides in no time. We had lunch at the Blue Bayou - we strayed from our usual Monte Cristo sandwich, Whit getting crab cakes and me a New York steak along with Mint Juleps, of course. It was a great day. No better way to spend the birthday than hanging out with Whitby in the happiest place on earth.
So, bring it on 30's.
This is the first birthday where my age freaked me out a little. I know I'm still young and I think the 30's will be great, but hitting the big landmark ages still makes you take stock a bit more than usual. But, I did have a great birthday weekend.
Saturday night Whit and I went to our birthday/Halloween party at Whit's parents' house. We all dressed up as fable/nursery rhyme characters. Eric was the Farmer from Farmer and the Dell, Carol was the Muffin Man, Chelsea and Grant were Goldilocks and Papa Bear, Brighton and Jordan were Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Whit was the craziest little boy blue ever and I was Little Miss Muffet (you can't quite see in the picture, but I had spider bites all over). We had a great meal: chili, spider bread, cupcakes etc., we played games and watched a scary movie, Let the Right One In. Whit and I had seen the movie already, but we wanted everyone to see it, because it is a really cool Swedish vampire movie.
Sunday we had brunch with some friends at the Griddle - the hugest pancakes ever. Then Sunday night Whit and I headed to Anaheim. We had dinner at ESPN zone, shopped Downtown Disney, watched the fireworks poolside at our hotel, then just took it easy in our room.
Monday was Disneyland! We both got in for free as it was our birthday. Such a great promotion. It was a perfect day, great weather, small crowds, got on all the rides in no time. We had lunch at the Blue Bayou - we strayed from our usual Monte Cristo sandwich, Whit getting crab cakes and me a New York steak along with Mint Juleps, of course. It was a great day. No better way to spend the birthday than hanging out with Whitby in the happiest place on earth.
So, bring it on 30's.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Stairway to Stardom
I realize I'm super late to this, but wanted to post these fantastic performances anyway:
Friday, October 16, 2009
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