white keyboards (little moment of compulsion #7)

I have one of them fancy-pantsy mac keyboards at my office, and it bothers me beyond belief when the pristine white keys start to build up a border of brown.  When this happens on my keyboard, I generally just clean the one key that's particularly problematic, but today I broke down and meticulously worked over each key and the metal in between.

I took out the batteries so that I wouldn't end up with a terminal full of nonsense, but I'm still finding spots that need a bit more work like nhghjhgf that one.  It makes me shudder to think about the cleanliness of non-white keyboard keys, like the ones on my laptop.

garden hands

In general, I prefer to work without gloves in the garden, unless I'm doing some seriously muddy work.  I just worry about the clumsiness of my hands handling tiny seeds and pulling weeds whose roots are intertwined with those of my flowers and veggies.

This preference, combined with my desire for clean hands when returning to our apartment, means that I've spent time thinking about some good hand-washing strategies.  I used to just wash my hands repeatedly and carve out the dirt meticulously with the nail-file end of a pair of fingernail clippers, and then wash some more.  But, Lo! There is a better way: use a brush.

I just lather up my hands, and then use my bath brush to get at the fingernails, and rinse.  (If I had a mudroom with a sink or something fancy—namely multiple bathrooms—I'd get a fancy nail brush.)  I'm not for advocating unnecessary stuff, but I feel like I have clean hands all the time and don't spend nearly as much time washing them as I did before getting my brush.  However, I refuse to feel silly that it took me this long to figure it out; there are always tricks like this lurking for any hobby.

Also: why is my spinach bolting in May?  It should at least have the decency to wait a few more days until June.

forgiving vs. condoning

Elder Holland's General Conference talk in April struck me with the following passage.

At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” [John 15:12] To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” [John 14:15] and “whosoever … shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be … the least in the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 5:19]  Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.  Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

I have often supported or encouraged in others things that I would not accept for myself. Sometimes I feel like this is okay, and sometimes it falls into "condoning sin."

Let's start with a softball example: pierced ears. Paul taught that the body is a temple (among lots of other crazy stuff), and the LDS church has discouraged piercings and tattoos, with the exception that it's okay for women to have one earring in each ear.  I don't have any piercings, nor do I want any, but I have no problem buying earrings for people, or complimenting earrings.  Honestly, I think non-traditional piercings and tattoos can also be very tasteful.  Simply put, I'm condoning things that I wouldn't accept for myself.  But the things I'm condoning aren't really a sin, I just have a weird thing against body modification for myself.  It's one of the thing I'm compulsive about: I can't even draw on myself with pen and not be scrubbing it off within a few minutes.

Alright, so the easy stuff is over; let's move right on over to the difficult and sensitive issues: gay marriage and sex outside of marriage.  I'm supportive of gay marriage rights. I'm also supportive of my friends who have sex outside of marriage.  But should I be?  I have no idea.  I don't really know what is sinful and what isn't—this is the crux of the problem.  On some level I just don't care about the details of personal choices my friends are making.  Mostly, I don't want them to feel judged constantly whenever they talk about their partner and I want to keep being their friends.  If I don't say anything supportive, they might very well presume I'm stewing in religious judgement, which I'm not.  For me, it really is as simple as the pierced ears example: I'm not going to do it myself, but I think other people can be happy with different choices.

For less complicated issues, I might think that people could be happier with alternative choices.  If they asked my advice, I'd probably guide them according to my personal morals.  But on socially charged topics, it's really hard to disentangle the "sin" from the "sinner."  If a dear friend is gay, how can you possibly tell them in love that you disapprove of them having any kind of romantic relationship?  Are you just supposed to let it sit there awkwardly?

I can't forgive friends for certain things (like being gay) because there is nothing to forgive.  They haven't wronged me in any way and it's not my place to pass judgement. For this same reason I cannot condone or condemn their actions.  I trust people to choose the best path for themselves.  I will give advice when asked and will try to be supportive of them as individuals.  If I am guilty of condoning sin, it is because I think everyone should have the choice to determine for themselves what qualifies as sin.  I'm certainly still figuring it out for myself.

While I seem to be dismissing Elder Holland's remarks, I still am rolling them around in my mind and heart.  In particular, there are certainly times that I fake approval of other people's choices (trivial or otherwise) because I'm a people-pleaser.  The real thing that I've internalized from his comments is to stop that behavior; I should just be honest about my reactions to things.  If I don't like the way that skirt looks, I shouldn't say I do and encourage my friend to buy it because she likes it.  If I don't think a particular couple should move in together, I shouldn't fake my support because I'm worried that they'll think I'm being judgmental otherwise.  I should have confidence in my opinions and stop trying to say what other people want to hear.

off by an inch (little moment of compulsion #6)

Today I was doing some small tidying when I did a double-take of one of our bookshelves. We have three of them, you know, all from Ikea. One tall and wide, one tall and narrow, and one short and wide, sitting smartly on top of a dresser of the same color and width. I did my double take of the last one, noticing that it was crookedly situated.  I prowled around it for two minutes, looking at it from various angles, including above in order to see the distance from the wall. Yes, indeed, it was most certainly off by an inch--an inch too far away from the wall on its right side, to be precise.

I felt a mix of confusion, anger, and embarrassment--all mild, it was only a bookshelf, after all--since it had been like this for two years and before I noticed.  Two years!  Gah!  We're hoping to move out of university housing in the next few months (once we find a place we like), but I knew that this would bother me every moment I looked at it.  So, I did what any sensible person would do: I took out all the books (and some miscellany), dusted down the shelves, and pushed the right side in an inch.

Then, before putting everything back, I did a second round of dusting and inspected everything to see if we actually needed it.  I even went through every pen in our jar-o-pens (which lives on that bookshelf) to make sure that they all worked.  The whole process didn't take too long, but I probably should have been doing laundry or vacuuming instead.

the things we don't clean (little moment of compulsion #5)

My mom taught me to make sure to clean the light-switches, because people rarely do.  I realized today that the same thing applies to lamp switches, doorknobs, and the faces of doors right above the doorknob--where people catch the door when it swings or where they push it when they don't need to turn the knob.    What else gets touched often that isn't on my radar of things to clean?

little moment of compulsion #4

I just finished washing my hands.  It's not a particularly odd occurrence for most of us (and it isn't for me either).  Usually we wash our hands after hitting the restroom, before preparing or eating food, or when you've been touching something like dirt, paint, or grease.  I can be a little more obsessive than that: I'll wash my hands after touching a stair bannister, working on a public computer, or after being outside.  Not all the time, mind you, it comes in waves.  And today was a wave.

I think today's hand washings were related to the weather--it's warm and a little humid and my hands just felt grosser than usual.  It doesn't really matter, until, of course, it becomes imperative that I wash my hands.

little moment of compulsion #3

I have a mild obsession with discrete foods: rice, beans, pasta, nuts, and most recently chia seeds (specifically, used this way).  In general, I like to clear my plate, but with discrete food, I like that I can eat every single piece.  It bothers me when a grain of rice gets split in half, or a piece of nut gets chipped off (unless I'm intentionally crushing them), because then it reminds me that they aren't actually discrete.

As I child, Twizzlers Pull-n-peel was one of my favorite candies.  I would carefully separate each string and divy it up between my Beanie Babies (I'm starting to feel the old).  And then I'd get all 7-years-of-plenty and 7-years-of-famine on them (yes, those are now a verbs), and devour everything in a systematic fashion, roleplaying various food-storing scenarios.  Ah, childhood.

Now, I just eat all my rice.  This new chia seed nonsense is particularly satisfying because the seeds don't really get split up or broken--I haven't seen any instances of it yet, at least.  Perhaps I've found my (near) perfectly discrete food.

little moment of compulsion #2

I have a favorite type of pencil.  It's the Pentel Twist-Erase III with 0.9mm lead, preferably in black.  I don't just like them, I hoard them.  I have eight of them in a box hidden in the house, plus the one I use regularly.  If I lose the one in current use, I'll take out a spare.  If I find the one I've lost, I'll put the spare back.  It's a good system.

N uses these pencils too, except he uses the 0.7mm ones (which I used to use--that's how we got them in the first place).  At one point, he couldn't find any of his and wanted to break into my store.  It's embarrassing in retrospect, but I had an emotional reaction and refused to let him have any.  Even when I eventually conceded, I gave him the one dark blue one that I had.

I've hoarded them since high school.  When we were in California, I found two packs of the 0.9mm version (totaling 4 pencils) unopened in my dresser.  N claimed them as his, and I started fretting about how we were going to tell his pencils apart from my pencils, since each pack had one black and one blue.

In addition to the pencils themselves, I have spare erasers and lead for them that will last until doomsday.  Come the apocalypse, or Pentel's bankruptcy, or the illegalization of mechanical pencils, I'll be prepared.

little moment of compulsion #1*

N and I buy plain white printer paper by the box.  We use it for everything from grocery lists to problem sets; I'll spare you the enumeration.  At any given time, we have one ream open at home, sitting on a shelf somewhere.  When N opens a new ream, he rips it open like kid opening a present, which makes me twitch a little because we tend to keep it in the packaging as we use it up.  On the other hand, I open them up like someone's great aunt who is going to re-use the wrapping paper.  I wouldn't blame him if he twitched back.

We finished up a ream this week, and I was the one to need paper first, so I got to open the next one.  Not only did I carefully unstick the glue, I decided that I needed to tuck the flaps back in so that the opening of the packaging was flush with the paper itself; usually we just leave them to stick out.  Tucking them in is so much cleaner.  To do so, you have to separate the overhang into four sections, one for each side.  I almost whipped out a pair of scissors to help me do this, be decided that that would be going too far.

*This obviously wasn't my first compulsive moment of all time, but I felt like has the potential for a series of posts.