You Stayed Alive This Long? Have Some Cake!

My Dear Reader,

(Sorry for missing last week's and this Tuesday's post! I've been working on another big writing project, and it kind of got in the way. Hopefully, when I post it here, you'll understand. And the Batman-y post is coming; I'm having a hard time with acquiring some additional media.)

I count myself very fortunate that I am my Madre's daughter, especially on the day of the year that I ritually get older. Why? Because when I grew up, a woman's age wasn't something to be ashamed of; it was just a fact. When I was young and I asked Madre how old she was, she would tell me in a way that let me know that it wasn't a big deal. It sounds small, but it really had an impact on my view of aging and birthdays. In fact, just a few months ago, one of my friends was freaking out because she was about to turn twenty-four. One foot in the grave; I know. I told her that I've been waiting my whole life to turn twenty-four. It's my favorite number, and my birthday's on the twenty-fourth, so I've always been thoroughly convinced that it was going to be the best year of my life. But even when I turn twenty-five, I'm not going to sweat it. Age isn't a weakness, and birthdays aren't an admission of guilt: they both just are. And we might as well take advantage of it, right? I mean, it's only once a year that you have a day set aside just to celebrate you.

I think a lot about birthdays a lot now, because in addition to being a Sunday school teacher, I am my ward's (read: congregation's) official Birthday Card Girl. No joke; I have actually been assigned the responsibility of making cards for all of my fellow women on their birthdays. (This is not an uncommon practice in Mormondom.) Anyway, once when I was getting ready for church, I pulled out the greeting card drawer and found, to my horror, that I'd already used all of my birthday cards. All I had left were some cards that had Snoopy on the front that said "Thank You!" And then I had this epiphany:

As important as rituals are to the human psyche, we have one big "we're sorry you're dead" ceremony: the funeral. People only die once, so it seems appropriate. But people get older every single second of their lives, and if you consider the entire course of human history, getting older is kind of an accomplishment. I mean, historically speaking, the fact that you, Gentle Reader, made it past age five* means that you're lucky and/or remarkably resilient. And that should be something to be proud of. Besides, every day is a blessing, and every day, you are a blessing to others. So, maybe we shouldn't think about birthdays as a "Hey, you're older!" ceremony as much as a "Wow! You survived this long?" or "We are so happy you're still with us!" ceremony. I mean, I am so glad that you didn't die of dysentery. Truly.

So I took those cards, and wrote on the front so that it looked like this:

THANK YOU!

for being alive!

People really got a kick out of that one.

Now that I've had this change of perspective, I find that every time I wish someone a happy birthday, what I really mean is, "I am so glad that you are in my life. You stayed alive this long? Have some cake!"

And you know what? You should go have some cake right now, even if it's not your birthday. After all, you survived today; you earned it.

Regards, best wishes, and many happy returns,

-Cecily Jane

*Sorry if you're not five yet, Gentle Reader. You can make it!

Who's Your Facebook Narrator?

My Dear Reader,

I have determined that it is time for something frivilous. Facebook counts.

I probably got on Facebook before you did. Serious. I first heard about it back when mostly Ivy League people were on it (2005?). In fact, the only reason I really joined was that my Ivy League friend contacted me and asked me to create a profile. Back then, it showed all of the friends you had and what college they were from. I guess BYU was the last space she needed on Facebook College Friend Bingo. I made a profile and forgot about it, until a year later when it exploded. It's been interesting to see Facebook progress since then, especially in regards to the status updates.

You might have been there by the time the statuses started. Originally, there was a drop-down box that had about five options, kind of like this (I don't remember the exact wording):

Tell your friends what you're up to!

• At work
• Studying
• At home
• Away
• Sleeping
• Custom . . .

You clicked one of the options, and it would pop out a status with your option and "[Your name] is" as a prefix, like "Cecily is studying," or whatnot. It was a small thing on the sidebar, and who would have guessed that it would eventually outshine every other feature Facebook had. Soon, everybody was choosing the custom option, writing things that fit the "[Your name] is" prefix. It was fun and different, and it became everything that Facebook was about. And then a rival website, Twitter, popped up that had just the statuses, it was so big. But it's easy to understand, at least to me. The reason is simple:

Facebook statuses make me feel like some omniscient being is narrating my life.

I mean, if you think about it, Facebook statuses are, by default, in third person. The "is" is now optional, but you still have to start out with your name, which equals third person. So, in a way, it's like you're writing your own narration to your life. I think that's pretty cool. I'm a documentary on penguins or and eighteenth-century romance novel. And that's how I imagine it as I read them to myself. Well, as you know, narration is really only as good as the narrator. I mean, would you listen to anything narrated by Gilbert Gottfried? So I thought long and hard about who I would like to "hire" as my narrator, and I came up with . . .

George Takei.

Yup, Sulu from Star Trek. He has one of the best voices I've ever heard.

And that got me to thinking: who would you like as your Facebook narrator, Gentle Reader? Tell me, and maybe we can put together a quiz that you can annoy your friends with, courtesy of Plain Vanilla. But seriously, I want to know, so tell me in the comments. And I might actually do a quiz, so there. Trust me, the world needs to know who your narrator is!

Okay, I think that's enough frivolity for now. Come back next week for something serious and involving Batman. Honest.

Regards, best wishes, and awesome narration,

-Cecily Jane

Is Exceptionalism so Exceptional?

My Dear Reader,

I started reading Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit after I watched the fantastic adaptation that BBC produced earlier this year. The book, of course, is even better. As I was reading, I came across this quote in chapter 25 (page 322 in the Penguin edition):

"[T]hey had a notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do things that England did."*

Oh, I thought, so these guys are ugly Americans.

You know the stereotype: a fat, pig-like man in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and a fanny pack. At the Acropolis. He has a loud, whiny voice in which he tells his hoggish wife and their piglet children how quaint Greece is, how nice of a picture it will make, and how disappointing it is that the Greeks neglected to make their ancient inscriptions in English. They should have known better. These people are noisy and rude, but the poor native executives put up with them because of their large tips. Meanwhile, farrows upon farrows of piglets in the Homeland are sitting in classes learning that America is the best, that the United States is inherently superior in all respects to all of the afflicted countries in the world. Sounds a lot like Dickens, doesn't it? So the piggish masses aren't strictly American! HA!

Of course, at the time Dickens wrote Little Dorrit, his Britain was a lot like our America, meaning that it was the most powerful country on Earth, and if Dickens' description is correct, they were very much aware of the fact. They thought themselves exceptional, just like those piglet American students. I mean, we definitely see ourselves as exceptional, don't we?

Our founders risked their lives for true principles, which were used to create a system of governance that unleashed true, everlasting freedom on its citizens. That's pretty exceptional, I think. Our way of life, our laws--they're different from everybody else, and we like it the way it is. And maybe, just maybe, other countries would be better off if they had our Constitution, wouldn't they? Well, if Dickens is right, then we're not alone, and though there are a lot of differences between 1800s Britain and our 2000s America, exceptionalism is one thing we definitely have in common. Maybe we didn't invent it, after all.

But exceptionalism is bad, isn't it? It's arrogant, right? Americans get called names because of our exceptionalism on a daily basis, from within as much as without. Those Dickensonian pigs are a prime example of how nasty American-style exceptionalism can be. How dare they think that they're better than everybody else! If they were Educated, and if they knew the Truth about the World and How It Really Is, they wouldn't dare act that way. Pigs.

When I started my first semester of college, I met with a lot of exceptionalism, but it wasn't necessarily the American kind. It was the Virginian kind, and the Nevadan kind, and the Washingtonian kind. I, of course, had brought with me the Californian flavor. Of the forty-four girls on my dorm floor, forty-four of them were quite certain that the states they came from was the best in the Union.** And I liked that. I think it's a good thing to think that your home is a good place, and perhaps, the best place. I mean, we all have our list of complaints, but at the end of the day, we like being where we are, because where we are is exceptional. Right?

Well, I'm tired of being looked down upon because I think that the United States of America is exceptional. Or because I like living here. Sure, I would appreciate it if my fellow Americans would try a little harder to represent the best of their nation when they go abroad, but we all know that we aren't really pig people, we just act like it on a few select occasions. And it's not like every other country in the world doesn't have something to be proud of, or doesn't have any people who occasionally act like pigs. My guess is that the main reason that most countries have a problem with American exceptionalism is that every country sees themselves as exceptional. Because if they didn't, they probably wouldn't mind us and our cultural invasion so much. It's like they're saying, "We take offense to you telling us that you like it your way because we like it our way." And they have the right to feel exceptional, because they are. I'm just sick of being considered part of the unwashed, barbaric, piggy masses because I like my home. Only an arrogant, piggish person would hate me for that, don't you think?

I, for one, think the pigs are just standing on two legs.

Regards, best wishes, and (respectful) home pride,

-Cecily Jane

*To be fair, the actual context of this quote makes the 1800s British sound a lot, lot worse, and I did cherry-pick the quote that best-suited my purpose. But I think it's also fair to say that the entire description that Dickens gives is a sarcastic exaggeration, and that the quote is chose was probably the least exaggerated of the lot.

**Yes, that bad grammar were was intended.