the waiting, it kills me

I couldn't sleep all of Christmas eve night. I woke up at 11:25 and never truly got back to sleep. The excitement of waiting for Christmas can do terrible things to you.

Starfing storkings

Yesterday we were supposed to take M-Lite to the airport around noon except her flight got delayed so we pushed back leaving until 2:00. It ended up being delayed 9 hours so we found ourselves with more and more time to do stuff throughout the day. One such thing was going to Target to buy stocking stuffers. My stocking is at home and Optimistic. doesn't have a stocking that specifically belongs to him, so we bought stockings as well as the stuffings. After we'd made all our purchases and were in the car we had a conversation that went something like this -

me: Wait, did you pick out a stocking for me or for you?

him: For you

me: Oh, I also picked out a stocking for me -I thought we were picking out our own stockings but getting the stuff for each other's. And there weren't any with (insert my first initial here)'s on them

him: Yes there were

me: Well you must have gotten the last one before I got there. There were plenty of (insert his first initial here)'s but I thought I was getting a stocking for me so I got an E

him: Why an E?

me: They were out of my letter and I liked the way the E looked.

So I'm going to use the E and Optimistic. will use the one he bought for me, and neither of us will have a stocking with our real initial on it. Years later this will make for a great Christmas tradition where no one in our family will have a stocking that corresponds to their name.

I wish I'd never been born

Our flight home for Christmas got canceled yesterday and I was more or less devastated. Yesterday was just awful, well, the first half at least. It was snowing and we had errands to run before our evening flight that we still thought we'd be taking. I had to go to the DMV to get a new license so I could have some ID with my real name on it before trying to get through security at the airport. Getting to the DMV was awful -it was snowing, State street was a block of ice, and on the way over we bumped into somebody's back bumper because our car just kept on sliding. Luckily there was no damage and the guy was really nice.

So I went and took my written test, but the driving and the testing took long enough that I was going to be late for my doctor's appointment (nothing serious) so I had to call and reschedule, which if you change your appointment without giving an hour's notice they will charge you for the missed appointment. I explained that I was in Orem, that the roads were ice, and that we had actually hit someone already today, and the girl on the phone was nice and said I probably wouldn't be charged because of how terrible it was outside.

So we got to the health center and as I waited to be called in, Optimistic., who had been on the phone, told me that our flight had officially been canceled, that nothing was going in or out of Portland, and that we'd essentially be missing Christmas with our families this year. So I sat and tried not to cry thinking about everything I was going to miss out on as the health center played Christmas music at me -songs like "I'll be home for Christmas" (I won't) and "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" (I'm not). Driving home I just cried and cried and cried some more when we got home and poured myself some cereal and tried to eat it without choking because it's hard to eat while you're crying.

Optimistic. was much more, well, optimistic about the whole thing and got on the phone and worked on rescheduling our flight. The news is, we're not going home until Saturday the 27th and I think that really bites for a lot of reasons. I'm very much into tradition and have a lot of specific Christmas traditions. Christmas eve I'm supposed to watch It's A Wonderful Life with my family and open the gift from my sibling. Christmas morning I'm supposed to wake up at 5:57, gather up Rough Draft and Huff Draft and do our own little tradition of eating toast and watching Wallace and Gromit until the rest of the family gets up two hours later. And I'm not going to get to do any of those things.

After we'd rescheduled everything Optimistic. decided that we needed to drown our sorrows at Brick Oven, which we did after picking up Uffish and M-Lite to go along with us. We ate and had fun, went to M-Lite's and watched Waking Ned Devine, then tromped our way back home through the snow which was surprisingly fun. So to make a very long story shorter, it could have been much worse -the guy whose car we hit could have been angry, but he wasn't. The girl I talked to about switching appointments didn't have to be understanding, but she was. And as I write this I'm remembering that I have left over pizza in the fridge that I can eat right now. All in all it's been humbling to see the things I value about Christmas taken away, to see it stripped down to nothing but a day and to remember what that day is for.

WAHOO!

I GOT ACCEPTED TO MY MAJOR!!!!!1!!! As you can see I'm being very dignified about it.


P.S. I don't think the people who accepted me have any idea that I can barely use a computer, but that's for me to know and hide from them forever
P.P.S. My major is Media Arts Studies (i.e. film and that sort of jazz)

Crap chutes and Ladders (patent pending)

Highlight from today: A lady in our ward said "crap chute" over the pulpit. That was pretty awesome. Also, today I returned to a favorite pastime of anagraming the hymn titles. If you're ever bored in sacrament meeting I highly recommend giving it a try. The last isn't a real anagram because it's missing a U, but I'm okay with that.

With Wondering Awe= We own a weird thing
O Come All Ye Faithful=Call me Al if you hef to
and
We'll Sing All Hail to Jesus' Name=Snail Mangles Seal With Jello

We'll see

I had my interview for my major today, and it went something like this-
I picked out my outfit last night, deciding to go with my cute black dress, sweater, and fun green shoes that Haley gave me. They have to let me in if I have cute shoes. This morning I walked up to campus in regular clothes, arrived at the HFAC, changed into my cute clothes and joined the line of people also waiting to be interviewed. Everyone was remarkably nervous and conversational, myself included. When the girl next to me said she thought she was going to wet herself she was so nervous I advised her to run away, much like Scar in Lion King. It's a very competitive major to get into. But she knew I was joking. One guy said he felt a little overdressed, but the girl next to him assured him that he looked good and said she liked his shoes. He in turn complimented her shoes and the conversation turned to the hypothetical "maybe we can win them over if we have nice shoes." Nobody commented on my amazing shoes, because they were obviously intimidated by them. I mean, they're fabulous shoes. They have to let me in with shoes like these.

The main cause for worry was that the interview is only 3 minutes long. Three minutes to make the best impression you'll ever need to make because this interview decides your future. I tried to do some reading while I waited, but it was impossible. People kept on turning the corner and coming down the hall where the interview room was, and we all had to look every time someone came along, because it might mean that they were coming for one of us. I eventually got called and when I stepped into the room I was kind of shocked to find that there were roughly a dozen people in there. A whole huge future-deciding committee. And the guy who did the ushering in and out got my last name wrong -somehow the first letter got changed to a P, but one of the ladies knew it was a typo.

Despite the fact that the interview was only 3 minutes long I managed to touch on a multitude of topics -I told them I was sock-puller # 2 in our family's static cling commercial, what I was doing when Princess Diana died, and about the time I cleaned puke out of a piano in the back room of BYUSA. All totally relevant to the topic at hand. I think it went well enough -they asked me questions like "was there a sock-puller #1?" and "how did you get the puke out of the piano?". I had them riveted I say, riveted! Or at least I mildly entertained them. Maybe I shouldn't have revealed how I got the puke out -it would have left them wanting more.

she's a lawn sweeper, 80's beeper, finder's keeper don't you mess around with her

Waiting at the bus stop one morning I saw a woman across the street sweeping her walk in her dressing gown, except after she'd swept the walk she proceeded to sweep the lawn as well. And then she kept bending over and picking stuff up off her lawn -presumably leaves. Why would anyone be up at 6:55 to sweep their lawn?

I saw her again last week, only this time it was lighter out and I saw that while she did indeed sweep her walk, behind her garage and out of sight she switched to a rake instead of a broom to tidy her lawn. So much for my sweeping theory. Her yard is meticulous, but I cannot understand why she does it. There's a distinct line where her yard ends and her neighbor's begins; her neighbor's yard is covered with leaves and there's a tree above it full of even more leaves waiting to fall. The crazy-early-leaf-picker-upper-woman's tree has no leaves on it. Did she get tired of waiting for the leaves to fall and use moon boots to strip them off the top of her tree?

I also looked down at the ditch next to where I wait for the bus and thought I saw a human finger, fairly pale but with a bloody stump and ridges where knuckles would be. Closer inspection revealed that it was a carrot.

Ghost painter

I did little to no work today. Instead I painted ghosts to hang up in my cubicle. That and I discovered that there is a band called Pianosaurus after the toy we once had.

Going for that sexy bee-stung lips look that only celebrities can pull off

As I was crossing the street on my way home from work today something flew through the air and hit me in the face before continuing on its way. I whipped my head around to see a bee flying off. A large bee. I got hit in the face by a bee. Except it hit me on my lips. I was kissed by a bee.* A non-committal love her and leave her jerk of a bee. I hope Optimistic. is wild with envy.



*It meant nothing to me, I swear. And it was all rather innocent -I had my lips closed. But I can't speak for the bee.

Come on down!

I had my follow-up appointment at the health center, so now it's time to play Catch That Disease! Spin the wheel for us, why don'tcha Johnny? Look at it go, and it looks like it's landing on........................fibromyalgia! Congratulations Johnny, you're our big winner today -tell him what he's won Rod!

"You'll be experiencing widespread aches and pains as never before with a disease so vague there's no known cure or cause! Non-degenerative and non-fatal, you're in for a real treat -it only manifests itself in 2% of the US population! But that's not all -you've also won yourself a bottle of amitriptyline! I'd ask you if you want to bid or pass, but you don't really have a choice!"


Also, I really like the idea of a game show where the contestants are doctors and they bring in a patient and whoever diagnoses them right makes it to the showdown round where they perform surgery blindfolded or something like that. It'd be like "What's my Line" or if you prefer, "What's my Crime" from 101 Dalmatians.

Stand in the place where you live

Update on me, because that's why you read this thing.

I am back in school, and I'm taking almost exclusively GEs which will undoubtedly make for a very tedious semester. I'm still at my job that I had over the summer. I decided to stay and work on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I don't have classes. This also means that I am now a commuter, because Maranda took her car when she rolled back into town, so now I ride the bus to Orem with the best of them. It gives me time to do all the reading for my reading intensive GEs though, so that's a plus.

I had a root canal this morning, and once I go back next week to have the build-up done for a crown, I will be out of money from the insurance company until next year, so crowns and root canal #2 are on hold until January. Maybe I shouldn't have had tried to do 7 years worth of dental work all at once, but my dentist assured me it was urgent. For now I can't eat anything sticky or hard. My dentist advised that I chew on the other side of my mouth while I have my temporary filling in, but I pointed out that I've got a root canal started on that other side as well. I guess it's pudding and juice for awhile.

M-Lite decided that we should start water coloring, so once a week we (her and me and M-High and Krebscout) are going to paint. We went and bought supplies last night with a lot of advice from Krebscout. I think it will be fun, and I'm not shooting for much more than that. Cardboard is my preferred medium -I've never been much of a painter.

I went to the doctor last week because I have some back and knee pain, and I feel pretty arthritic for someone who's only twenty-one. Result: I had my blood taken for the first time ever so they can check me for rare auto-immune diseases and scare the crap out of me. It wasn't so bad at the time, but the crook of my arm turned into one gigantic bruise that hasn't gone away. In fact, up until yesterday it was getting bigger and yellower. The upshot is that now I'll probably find out what blood type I am. I'm hoping for O+, but I'll probably be A+ like all my sisters.

I bought my BYU football shirt today, in preparation for the game against UCLA tomorrow. Go cougars! Now I have to go to class, and then after class today I have to do laundry, clean the living room, go to a BBQ at M-Lite's, go to our stake BBQ, and possibly go to Humor U. Alas, my work is never done.

For a good time call

Saturday night 11:03

We'd just gotten back from a friend's house after a triple date with tacos, the Olympics, and bocce ball, when my phone rang. No one would call me that late unless they knew I was up, so I assumed it was the friend whose house we'd just left calling to say I'd forgotten an onion or something. It was not. Instead it was a guy out with a group of friends at Denny's. This is how the conversation went -

-Hello?
-Hi, I'm calling for Genuine...
-That's me
-Hi, my name is Joseph, and I'm at a Denny's and I found this sugar packet that says "For a good time, call Genuine" so we thought we'd call in search of a good time. What are you up to?
-I'm just getting ready for bed, but you're in for a good time if you're at Denny's. What did you order-the grand slam I hope
-We actually haven't ordered yet, but I'll keep that in mind

The conversation went on and I asked what they were doing eating so late and was informed that they were a group of actors who had just finished a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Sundance resort, and they were out for a bite to eat to celebrate.

-Oh, who do you play?
-Tom snout, the tinker who plays the wall in the smaller play. Here, I'm handing you off to one of my friends...

-Hello?
-Hello, who's this?
-I'm Wes
-Wes? The only other Wes I've ever met was a dentist
-Yeah, it's kind of a rare name -I like it
- I have a rare name too, and I like it
-Yeah -Genuine- I'd never heard that name before
-Neither had I until I had it. Wes, who do you play?
-I'm Nick Bottom
-Oh that's nice
-Hey I have a question -why did you write your name and"For a good time call" on a sugar packet?
-Ah, well, I didn't write my name on a sugar packet. It's something my husband and I do when we're at restaurants, writing our friends' numbers on sugar packets, so I suspect that someone I know has done the same thing to me. A friend of mine actually got a call off of one once.

Wes then handed me over to a third cast member who Wes said plays a fairy. Guy number three corrected him and said that he was not a fairy, he was an immortal person. Way to be politically correct guy number three. In the end, I was handed back to "Joey" who encouraged me to come see the show, and assured me that they had indeed had a "good time" talking to me as advertised by my sugar packet.

I'm tempted to go see their show now. If you're at all interested you should call the number below -it's sure to be a good time.

Cheesesteaks, get your cheesesteaks!

Finding out that our office in Philly South is burning to the ground right now=slightly more interesting day at the office.

This is the house that boredom built

Question: Did I just make a little house out of paper clips and tape because there was nothing to do at work?
Answer: Yes, yes I did
Question: Did I then proceed to cover the roof of my tiny paper clip house with even tinier shingles made out of sticky notes?
Answer: No comment

Bejeweled

Sitting in a Wendy's for lunch there was a group of four guys sitting across the way. One of them turned to the guy sitting diagonal from him and asked, "Do I love you, or am I settling?"There was a lot of context, but without the context it makes that sentence the funniest thing I've heard this week.

Context: There was a song by Jewel playing on the radio and one of them asked what it was about. One guy said it was about commuting (which means this guy was a complete moron). Another guy said he was wrong, and that the song was about settling, about standing still in a relationship, which prompted him to say,"Do I love you, or am I settling?"

Root root root for the home team

Brief update -I can't feel my face right now. I just got back from the dentist's office, where they gave me lots of shots and started two root canals. The problem with me and going to the dentist is that I have no problem going to the dentist. I always end up laughing when I'm in the chair because my brain is always churning out random images, making the situation extremely comical.

For instance, when you get a root canal they take a series of what I suppose are files, and they gouge out the inside of your tooth with them. The files get bigger and bigger. They did this to me not moments ago, and then they packed my teeth full of some cotton type stuff and sealed them up. Except when they were packing in the cotton type stuff, I had the thought: What if they were packing my teeth with explosives? Can't you picture that? Exploding teeth? It made me want to laugh like crazy, except I couldn't because, fact: There were a couple of hands in my mouth. There was also a lot of spit, so when I tried to suppress my laughter it made a loud stranglingly gargled noise. They assumed I was choking because of the amount of spit they'd let accrue in the back of my throat, which they promptly apologized for and then remedied the situation by using the sucker thingus to remove it all.

Except the spit wasn't the reason for the gargle, and I still had to laugh because I suddenly wondered what would happen if I were to bite down on my dentist's hand. Then I realized I couldn't even if I wanted to because they were using one of those rubber tooth pillows to keep my jaw open. Fact: tooth pillows are nowhere near as luxurious and comfortable as regular sleeping type pillows. I tried to think about non-hilarious things, like puppies dying, but it turns out I am some kind of sicko or something because that did nothing. So I tried to think about tooth decay and the fact that my teeth are unhealthy, and that finally did the trick.

The best part of all of this is that Optimistic. bought me pudding and now we get to go out for my traditional after dentist hamburger.

Bastille Day

My finger floss is a year and a half old as of today.

I went camping at Silver Lake this last weekend. If anyone ever asks you if you want to go camping at Silver Lake, do not hesitate -kick them in the head and run away. It was beautiful and all, but it's a long drive on a road made out of boulders, and when you get to the top there aren't any bathrooms. I was very angry by the time I got out of the car.

I get to go to the dentist on Wednesday and I'm excited to finally get a cleaning as well as some follow up appointments to get my root canals and wisdom teeth taken care of.

We're going to Yellowstone next week, which will be a lot of fun -a lot of the game show network, a lot of bison, a lot of Optimistic.'s family and a lot of poker.

I just ate some ravioli.

I blame you for my pickle factory accident!

Dear My Bladder,
You should be relieved to know that despite the dream I had this morning you are not powered by lithium batteries.*

Ever yours,
Genuine P. Draft

*Upon hearing about my dream Optimistic replied "lithium batteries, or lithium blatteries?" His ability to make bad puns even at 3:12 in the morning astounds me

Sissified

I came across the best name yet at work yesterday - are you ready for this? PANSY PIERRE!* I laughed for a good long while about this one.

*Pansy if you're reading this please don't have me fired.

Sweet holy goodness I'm going to make me some chicken

It finally arrived - my fryer is here! I ordered it last week after a chicken frying incident, and now it's here in my kitchen begging me to deep fry some breaded ravioli. I actually dreamed about it being delivered. Goodbye arteries, hello happiness, I think that I will die!

The DMV, the stripper, and me.

The other day at work I had to spend my lunch break running errands -namely, getting my car registered. So I spent a horrible lunch break trying to get over to the DMV and finally made it there after having to stop by the safety and emissions testing place, going the wrong way on Center street, and having to parallel park, which I do not know how to do. Anyway, I got the new plates and miracle of miracles only had to spend about 15 minutes at the DMV, so I raced back to work, arriving with a few minutes to spare before I had to clock back in. Except I couldn't clock back in, because I couldn't get through the door of the office.

Earlier in the day one of my bosses had received a bouquet of roses roughly the size, though not the shape, of Texas. It was her 5 year anniversary, and her husband was being romantic. That same boss was outside the office door when I got back from the DMV, and she was in handcuffs, with two party hats on her head, as a fake cop was writing her out a ticket. He was a middle aged man with large mirrored sunglasses and a badge on the sleeve of his uniform that said "oinker patrol". He wrote out the ticket, gave her a stern lecture, and then proceeded to strip.

With a whip of his belt, off came the pants. Then the shirt. Underneath his clothes he was wearing a leopard skin Tarzan type outfit, with his chest hairs peeking out the top and his garment bottoms peeking out the bottom. He was also wearing grey dress socks that came halfway up his hairy calves. He sang a slightly shocking song about marriage to the Mexican hat dance song. And when it was all over he announced that he liked my boss so much he was going to let her keep the handcuffs.

I finally managed to get through the door to my desk where I clocked in and wondered why I couldn't have been held up at the DMV like every other person.

Catherine C. Crapper

Some of the fun names I have come across at work-

-Sandy Jelly
-Joy Christmas
-Queen Angus
-Michael Jackson

Look, you get porridge!

When my alarm went off this morning I pushed Optimistic.'s nose in an attempt to turn it off. He did not seem very pleased.

James Earl Jones is a little girl in my ward

Today in Sunday School, during the prayer when everyone had their eyes closed, a small child was crying. Then there was a loud thud and the crying stopped. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that there are some very ugly kids in my ward. One little girl in particular reminded me of somebody I couldn't place until I realized that she looked like a boiled egg, and the only other person I equate with looking that way is Darth Vader with his mask off. Yeah, no amount of elastic bows on her head is gonna cover that up.

Shooting the craps

Optimistic. and I have gone crazy for poker since my birthday, so last week I bought a poker table top thingus and it got here on Friday! It has cup holders, a reversible top for blackjack and, wait for it......CRAPS! Craps is incredibly fun to play, just so you all know -I've never lost so much fake money in all my life!

I also started my new job last month, but I'll write more on that sometime later. For now just know that I'm getting better at my job, which entails making phone calls (I hate talking on the phone) and using a computer 9 hours a day (I hate using computers). Thank goodness for gambling or I'd go crazy living day after day with the endless drudgery of...I mean... I love you Optimistic. and the life we share together! Well, gotta go folks, there's church to be had!

Not the crappy play by Edward Albee, but the real American Dream

My sisters and I were talking the other day about the ice cream man. I said it was one of those things that's supposedly a part of every person's childhood, but that I didn't really think it was. It's just something the kids on T.V. do, which doesn't mean it's an accurate representation of how things really are. I'd never gotten to buy anything from the ice cream man growing up, so there was a good chance a lot of other kids hadn't either. I was never able to buy anything from the ice cream man because it was too expensive, and why buy a popsicle from a strange man in a van when we already have some in the freezer, was the reasoning my mom used. And she's right - it's not practical.

So in my head I entertained the idea that maybe only a small fraction of the population has purchased ice cream from the ice cream man. It's a myth I said- an "all children get their ice cream from the ice cream man" type myth. Except my sisters squelched that right away - they'd gotten something from the ice cream man as children. Apparently my mom gave them money one time when he came around. I have no idea where I was when this happened, but it was rather upsetting to think that they had gotten to get something and I had not.

Anyway, yesterday I went to buy groceries. I returned home, parked, took one loads worth of food inside, plunked it on the kitchen table, and headed back outside to get more, and then I heard it. The ice cream man music. I looked about wildly until I saw the van. He was coming right down my street.I didn't even hesitate - I took my wallet out of my purse and marched purposefully down the street, right toward him. I stayed close to the curb at first, so as to not be directly in the road, because Optimistic. said his dad handles a lot of insurance claims dealing with children who have been run over trying to cross the street to get to the ice cream man. So I waited until he was close, stepped out a little further into the street, and stopped. His eyes got big as he realized that here was someone who wanted to buy from him, and he stepped on the brakes.

To be honest, I was a little unsure of what to do. I told him I was trying to decide what to buy, and then asked him if I was on the right side of the truck to buy my ice cream. He assured me that I was. I didn't want anything too expensive, but at the same time I wanted to make the stop worth his while, so I settled on a $2.00 Jolly Rancher Watermelon sno-cone type treat. I knew as soon as he handed it to me that it wasn't really what I wanted, but I didn't actually care. I had bought something from the ice cream man. I was living the American dream.

I walked back over toward my house, tearing open my treat as I went, and I saw a little girl across the street playing in her yard. Or rather, she had stopped playing and was staring open-mouthed at the ice cream truck. Toy garden spade in hand she turned and ran for her mother, no doubt begging her to let her get a treat. I gloated a little in my head. I had a treat. Granted, I'm a grown up and I had to pay for it myself in order to live out a life long childhood fantasy, but I still had a sno-cone and she didn't - sucker face!

With Bony M's permission, I may tell another ice cream man story another day. It involves deception and enraged Canadians.

Moses, Moses!

I, Genuine P. Draft have a job for this summer. Most likely. Anyway, it's kind of exciting to be employed, so I'm going to focus on that fact rather than the fact that I don't exactly know what my new job entails. I'm going to be an Area Office Coordinator for a company, and from what I've been told it means I'd be bossing around people who are in Texas and various places. We'll see if I'm up to it.

More importantly, I found a mustache yesterday while I was at work. It was left behind after a language fair and probably belonged on the sweaty lip of some 13 year old kid, but I snatched it up and am considering wearing it when I go to take my finals. I truly am tempted.

And more important than that is that there was a giant hairy spider in my shower this morning, right on top of the shower head, which is where the last shower spider I encountered was almost six years ago. It was frightening. I had to club it with various empty bottles. I may never shower again friends.

Also, Optimistic. and I are going to St. Louis next month for a whole week of spectacular goodness. There will be a wedding of a Leaps to a Krys, a Radiohead concert, some staying with friends in Indiana, and possibly some six flags, Chicago, Muncie, and Louisville thrown in for good measure. It will be amazingly good times.

Today we had a small party at work because it was Nichole's last day. It was interesting because we decided to have it in one of the freight elevators. We brought in a table with a tablecloth and had doughnuts and milk and cookies while we were purposefully stopped between two floors. Tomorrow I'm going to do laundry, maybe take some finals, and maybe hit up a garage sale I know is going down a block from my house.

I haven't written about any of the things I did this last month. I turned 21, had an Easter egg hunt, accidentally changed the time on my alarm clock and woke Optimistic. up at five in the morning, had Freyja and a friend come stay with us over conference weekend, wrote a song about Wafflepants (it's very catchy), finished up all my classes, had an English professor say that I was presumptuous when I asked him for help, drank Jamba Juice, and was tutored by my friend who taught me everything I should have learned about statistics throughout the semester but didn't in just a few hours. I also ate at Tucanos recently and wanted to die afterward I was so full. And I bought The Ten Commandments to commemorate the passing of Charlton Heston. I'm half way through; he has seen the burning bush and is about to head to Egypt to give Yul Brynner what for. Go get 'em Charlton!

Today I took an Easter egg out of someone else's bushes, opened it up, ate a malt egg out of it, and put it back. Then I hit a friend with the Easter basket I happened to be carrying with me in the library on my way to read Ice Cream Larry books. And before all that Optimistic. and I went on a walk to the duck pond and carried on our Easter tradition of rolling our decorated hard boiled eggs at the ducks. I also went back to my old apartment and reclaimed my favorite blue rocking chair from off the balcony. Just walked off with it after having left it there for almost a year. I hope they wonder about it, whoever lives there now. I chased ducks, and almost caught a slow one. People across the street were having a picnic on their lawn while I did dishes with the window open. This evening the temperature was perfect outside.

I have plans for my tax rebate - I'm getting a tent - a big one that sleeps a dozen people with enough room to stand up in and stay up all night playing cards by lantern so that when I say "Let's go camping" and someone says "I don't have a tent" I can say "I have a tent - a big tent - and you and seven other people can come and camp with me, if I like you and your seven other people well enough."

It is Spring outside, and close to being Summer and I will camp and picnic and play croquet and lay in the park at night being eaten by bugs and be wildly happy.

License to kill

Walking home from work yesterday I saw a license plate that read KELLBEL. I concluded that its owner must (a) be a fan of the movie Kill Bill and (b) be a native Utahan.

[sic]

I am home sick today, with a throat thing and a heavy head and some aches and pains. So far I have accomplished emailing a paper to my TA that was due today, watching several episodes of Grey's Anatomy online, and putting on deodorant, in that order. I may go watch Pollyanna now because it is my sick day movie. Also, it turns out drinking 72 ounces of water in one sitting will make you have to go to the bathroom. Who knew?

along the trail to fame and glory

It was a night of firsts. I went to my first BYU sporting event last weekend, the shocking part of that announcement being that I've been here for 3 years. I'm a junior, and I had been to nothing, so when M-High called me up and asked if I wanted to go to the men's volleyball game I said yes. We walked over together and upon arrival I informed her that I expected the works - I wanted "the overpriced hot dog, the snack foods bigger than my head, everything! The sky's the limit! "

"Okay, but either way, you're paying for it."
"What? You asked me, remember? I can't believe you expect me to go dutch on this!"

We got good seats in the blue chairs (I insisted because the benches hurt my back so much) and headed off to the concessions stand, where we discovered, get this, only reasonably priced concessions*. I was shocked. Anywhere else would have charged upwards of seven dollars for a hot dog, and BYU had the nerve to charge only $2.50. This definitely threw my plans for a loop and resulted in me buying a lot of food -namely nachos, a tub of popcorn bigger than my head, and a flavor pop, which is seven times bigger than an otter pop and not nearly as tasty.

The game was good -very exciting stuff, this volleyball. Except that when BYU won a game everyone stood up all of the sudden and I had no idea what was going on. I hurriedly emptied my lap of the popcorn, the nachos, and the flavor pop and stood up to find that everyone was singing the fight song. I was aware we had one, I'd just never heard it before, and even with the words displayed on a giant screen I had no idea what tune I was supposed to be singing it to. And when it got to the end, it turned out to not be the end, because there was a whole Ra Ra Ra-Ra-Ra bit that I didn't know was coming. My fist/air pumping was sporadic to say the least. Stupid ra ra ra. I did much better the second time around, and by the time we won the last game I was a seasoned pro. Not enough to be able to tell you now what the words are to the fight song, but enough that I can do that air punching thing without looking like I'm having a heart attack.

Other firsts from that evening -

(1) I considered tossing a nectarine pit down the collar of a semi-acquaintance sitting one row in front of me and three seats down. I restrained myself.

(2) I tried flossing my teeth with a granola bar wrapper. Eating popcorn always leaves those pesky brown thinguses in my teeth, and my fingernails aren't long enough to get them out. I even propositioned M-High by gesturing to my open mouth and saying, "You've got nice long nails, would you mind?" She did, in fact, mind.

I consider the whole evening to have been an absolute triumph.


*Every time I hear the word concessions I get it confused with the word indulgences, so when the billboard at the movies says "Impress your date, buy concessions" I think of some sort of catholic market for paying off past sins going on behind the popcorn counter

Happy VJ Day (six months in advance)

Optimistic. bought me a copy of Space Jam for Valentine's day. And that, folks, is how I know it's meant to be. On another note, M-High called me up just to say "What time is it? It's Valen-times! What time is it? It's Valen-times!" That is all.

bahee ya ee ya....wah wah wah (or the theme music from High Noon)

I needed to get up early this morning to finish some assigned reading, take a quiz, and write a five to seven page paper. I normally get up around 7am, so I set my alarm for 5am, which I knew was going to be brutal when I woke up. This is after going to bed late because I was up reading and then just couldn't fall asleep. I probably fell asleep sometime around 1:30 am at the earliest. So I woke up, looked at my clock, and saw that it was 5:10 already, because I had woken up 15 minutes earlier, seen that it was almost time to get up, and had turned off my alarm. I got up and showered, only to realize halfway through that I had misread my clock, and it was actually 3:10am. I finished my shower and went back to sleep, only to get up at 6am instead of 5am, so I managed to both get up 4 hours earlier than usual and 1 hour later than I had intended.

The thing is, this sort of thing happened to me all last semester. I had both a digital alarm clock and standard wall clock in my room, but because they were across the room I had a hard time making them out. As for the digital alarm clock, it was impossible for me to read its display first thing in the morning. Eyes straining against the darkness and a moderate case of myopia, I would often see things I shouldn't have, like

6, IT IS!
or
the square root of 6 ; the square root of 3 (in mathematical symbols)

On the wall clock, 8:00 looked much like 9:00 and so on, and I was forever getting mixed up. I always had to take a third look to figure out what time it actually was, so I was very much surprised once when after at least five looks the 9:00 wasn't changing back to 8:00 as it should have, only to have it dawn on me that I had actually read the clock correctly for once and was late.

Baconic

I had my cooking lab today and made soup. The best part of the lab was when my teacher was checking to see if each group had picked up all the ingredients to make their salads, so she was yelling out, "Who needs bacon*? Does everyone have bacon who wants it? Who still needs bacon? You all should have gotten some bacon!" All I could think was that she was a married woman who shouldn't have been propositioning us in such a way. Also, I want to say that I'm very proud of my soup, and even prouder of myself for eating some of it. That is all.

*This is a euphemism, but not a terrible one

101

Apparently that last post was my 100th and I didn't even realize it. How very anticlimactic.

Wrapped around my finger

"I've got the world on a string, sitting on the rainbow
Got the string around my finger, what a life, Mama, I'm in love.
Life's a beautiful thing, as long as I hold the string
I'd be a silly so-and-so if I should ever let you go."—Ted Koehler

It's a momentous day folks. I have now had this piece of floss tied around my pinkie for one year. It doesn't really seem possible that so much time has gone by, and yet it has. I can't quite decide what to do in regards to the string, because there's a chance that it may never come off. I thought about cutting it off today on its one year anniversary, because to be quite honest there's no good reason for it being on there. I tied it on and then decided to see how long it would stay. I rarely even notice it's there most of the time. I had better think about it some more.

In recent news, we celebrated Optimistic.'s 25th birthday this weekend with a party on Saturday and a family dinner on Sunday. Each was a success. Sunday I made some lasagna that will have to be eaten as leftovers for several days to come. Saturday we spent some of our gift cards and now own a lot more stuff than we did before. About $400 worth more. I really need to get those thank you cards out.

So like I said, Optimistic. turned 25 yesterday, and that fact kind of hit me in the face last night as I was falling asleep. I'm married to a 25 year old man. I'm married and living in an apartment a thousand miles from where I grew up. I share an apartment with a man. I own a toaster oven with him. Toaster oven nothing, we own a car together. And someday we'll have children. I feel really old and really young at the same time, and sometimes that scares me deep down to my core. He didn't seem to care that he was another year older (and wiser too), maybe because he's at that age where age doesn't matter anymore. I still feel each year as it's added on, feel my youth slipping away, and wonder how I can be not quite twenty one and already married. I haven't played in the snow this year. I haven't played much at all.

That said, I have a fun story from yesterday when we went to our new married ward for the first time. The bishop had all the new couples come and meet in his office during the second hour so we could get to know each other and introduce ourselves. At the end of Optimistic.'s turn the bishop asked if there was anything else Optimistic. wanted to share. He replied that he had a cold. The bishop then said something along the lines of "well, that won't do" and got up to retrieve a tall can from the table across the room. Then he had Optimistic. hold out his hands while he sprayed some foam into them. He'd been sanitized.

The bishop rubbed some of the foam on his own hands as he extolled its virtues, saying "I just can't stand alcohol, so I found this sanitizer that isn't alcohol based. I love this product. I bought a case of it. It feels great going on and it keeps the germs away for more than three hours." One of the other two women in the room piped up, "well that's great for the two of you, but what about the rest of us?" so the bishop went around and had the rest of us hold out our hands as well. I didn't really want to, but it seemed like there was no way out of it. So that's my little story, that our new bishop sanitized us both before we were let out of his office. What a welcome.

As a point of business, I have names for about half of my family members on this blog. The other half I've just used initials for, so over break I decided on what I'm going to call everyone.

My parents are simply Mom and Dad, although my dad has signed himself as Daddy No Bucks before, and seeing him in his tuxedo at the wedding with his neatly buzzed head made the connection to Annie even more apparent.

Us kids in order are:

-First Draft (Because she's the oldest. Formerly called F2)
-Audrey (because she has her own blog and goes by her own name)
-Bony M (Named after the band. Watch Touching the Void if you have any questions)
-M-Lite (Short for Miller Lite, so named because of the two of us she's the lighter one while I'm a bit stouter. Get it? Stouter?)
-Me. Genuine Draft. Hearty and robust in flavor
-Miller High Life (formerly called H, and now to be abbreviated M-High)
-Rough Draft (my only brother, formerly called F). I don't mean for his name to imply that he's a work in progress or anything like that, just that he's the manliest sibling I have and so deserved a draft moniker worthy of his guyishness. I also thought about Tough Draft, Scruff Draft, Buff Draft, Snuff Draft and Guff Draft. I'm still kind of undecided. Maybe I should ask him what he wants to be called.
-Final Draft (formerly H2), so called because she's the last Draft. I also considered calling her Huff Draft because she's an asthmatic.

And thus concludes this post.

Hugh Laurie/Playing House

This is just a quick update on my life to get me back into the blogosphere before I get really busy. I've just finished up my first week of classes, and I have to say it feels good to be back in school. I hadn't been enrolled since last Winter semester, and just working was starting to wear on me. I'm getting back into the swing of things -the walking, the sitting, the not paying attention -it's like riding a bicycle. Some of the classes I'm looking forward to more than others are Intro to film and Creative writing. I'm even taking a food prep class, which promises to be highly informative, seeing as how I don't really know anything about cooking.

Mostly I've been settling into our new apartment. We spent a good two days unpacking everything and trying to find places to put everything, but we have a lot of closets so it has all worked out beautifully. Our place even has a spare bedroom, so Bony M and A and baby Andy are going to stay with us when they come to town in April. Tomorrow is going to be spent shopping for all the necessities we didn't get as gifts, like dishes, cookie sheets, and pot holders. I went to make a pizza the other day and had nothing to put it on or take it out of the oven with. And we're celebrating Optimistic.'s birthday tomorrow so there's some baking that needs to be done. That's all that's new with me really. I'm back in school and back at work and just trying to make do until we get some real dishes to eat off of.