Genuine Draft

The adequate, forgettable, and occaisonally regrettable

2011-09-30T13:02:00.009-07:00

An interesting thing about Eugene is that it has streets named after presidents. That's not so uncommon, except Eugene doesn't just have the popular or well known presidents. They've got the standard Lincoln, Jefferson, and Madison to be sure, but they also have people like Hayes, Garfield, and Fillmore represented. My only beef with their system is that the presidential streets aren't in any order. In my mind, it makes the most sense to place them in the order they served, so if you're driving around looking for Harding and you come across Coolidge, you know you've gone too far. I also secretly hoped they'd have more than one street named after Cleveland in honor of his two nonconsecutive terms, but alas, they do not. So, here is a sample of the new improved set-up I am proposing:

Pretty snazzy, right? Also, where a president intersects with the street corresponding to his presidential number, a statue will be erected. That way when you come across a statue of a man stuck in a bathtub you'll know you're at the corner of Taft and 27th. Suggestions on how to pose the other presidential statues to ensure instant recognition are welcome.

The state of things

2011-09-26T11:09:00.006-07:00

A month ago we left Provo, dragging all our worldly possessions behind us in a trailer. It's a 14 hour drive to Portland, but we were buoyed up by the thought that we'd probably never have to make it again. So we drove and drove and drove some more, and eventually arrived at Optimistic.'s folks, where we were planning on staying a few days until we could secure an apartment in Eugene. However, instead of moving into anywhere, we got jerked around and promised apartments that would never actually become available. This is because all realtors are lying pieces of crud. So instead of four days, we spent four weeks in Portland, and are now down in Eugene staying with some nice members from the ward because Optimistic.'s classes started today and his job started a week before that.

We did find a place (without the help of the many realty agencies we paid fees to), and I'm pretty excited about it, the only snag being that it doesn't open up until Oct. 1st, hence all the commuting and living with people we don't know. It's a triplex, with the owners living on site. Our apartment is built just off the side of their house, and then there's a third apartment upstairs and around the back.

Here's our apartment off to the side.

And a shot of the kitchen, which is pretty small, but there's a nice big living room, and you can kind of see off to the side there's a bonus room with sliding glass doors leading to the back yard.

And our bedroom upstairs has hardwood floors.

The hardest part of this whole excursion has definitely been having all our stuff in storage. I packed a very limited set of stuff to take with us, which means I've been wearing the same outfit to church for the last three weeks and I'm running out of Q-tips. All my books, movies, craft supplies, and pots and pans are packed away and I'm going a bit stir-crazy not being able to do any of the things I normally do. Worst of all, this weekend should have been my fifth annual Hobo Fest, which rather ironically can't be held because I don't have a place to live.

It's a sickness, people.

2011-08-24T12:56:00.004-07:00

We're getting ready to move, which means digging all of our stuff out of our apartment's many nooks, crannies, abysses, etc. To say our apartment was built with storage in mind is an understatement. We have closets within closets within closets of stuff, most of which hasn't been looked at since we crammed it away almost four years ago. Today I decided to start tackling the office closet. (I say start to ease the pressure of cleaning out this monstrosity in one day).

Well, I got all the boxes off the top shelf and happened upon a box of 100 cassette tapes (super useful), as well as a big white envelope marked MRI. So I opened it up, and what do I find? Scans of my sister's brain from 2007.

People, today I must admit that my pack-rattery has astounded even me. I don't know why I have these scans. Maybe she gave them to me. Maybe I stole them from her. I cannot say. Most likely she didn't want them and I thought they might come in handy, but what sort of person thinks that? Who looks at their sister's old MRI's and thinks hmmm...I could make a chandelier out of that? Me, apparently.

-Genuine Draft
Pack-Rat Extraordinaire

Ahhhlaska

2011-08-03T14:55:00.027-07:00

I am now back from our Alaskan cruise adventure, which was indeed an adventure owing to the fact that I got sick the night before we left for Seattle. The one week I actually had plans I got bronchitis. As a result I spent a lot of time coughing (things up) and ended up losing my voice for a bit. It was fun times. But, on to the pictures!

Here's Optimistic. outside our boat (the Sapphire Princess) in Seattle. You can tell from the fierceness of his gaze that he is impatient to get to the cruising already. Why? Because there is food on the boat!

Lobstee, no! You are not really food! You have too much to live for! Eventually I talked him down, and before we knew it we were off the boat and in Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world.

Here are all the siblings in Eagle park doing their best to look majestic/eagle-like. Most of them failed so we moved on to look at the gift shops where we had the pleasure of running into Sarah Palin.

This was a dream come true for Optimistic., but due to a restraining order filed by Ms. Palin earlier this year, he was forced to don a disguise so as to admire her up close.

Ah yes, she'll never recognize him now! After Ketchikan we went through Tracy Arm, which I'm told was beautiful but I chose to sleep through. Here's a picture Optimistic. took from the top deck.

After that it was on to Juneau where we ventured out into the rain to board a tour bus whose windows were so fogged up we couldn't really see anything.

But we trundled along and the driver gave us the scoop on the history of Juneau and after an enjoyable ride we arrived at the Mendenhall Glacier.

Yes, it's blue, and if you had sat through the movie at the Visitor's center twice like I did you'd know why. The big thrill of the visit was getting to touch a 250 year old piece of ice.

As a bonus I've included this guy who works at the visitor's center. Cool, right? Once Lobstee saw the ice there was no keeping him from it.

I had a lot of trouble keeping him from climbing into all the displays. He's full of mischief like that. Here he is crawling around in a bear's mouth. He has no fear that lobster.

Optimistic. was just as bad, as evidenced by the following picture in which he is shaking hands with a goat. They're ripe for blackmail, the both of them.

Our next stop was Skagway. Optimistic. was off zip-lining so I went to the Skagway Museum and poked around.

There were a lot of interesting artifacts on display from the time of the town's founding and I would have stayed longer if Lobstee hadn't managed to get us thrown out. Something about illegal gambling combined with the use of flash photography.

I say putting a roulette wheel out in the open like that is asking for trouble. Either way I was back on the boat before I knew it.

The next leg of our journey meant a few days on board as we headed for Canada, so we had a lot of time to hang out together. This entailed eating a lot of food and playing a lot of cards.

Check out this excellent hand. Several movies on TV later we arrived in Victoria, constituting my first trip out of the country.

We walked around, saw the sights, and spent a chunk of Canadian money on souvenirs.

And that was the end of the cruise. But unfortunately not the end of our trip. After we disembarked in Seattle we spent sixteen hours driving back to Provo in a gigantic SUV that ended up running out of gas 25 miles outside of La Grande. But that's a whole different story involving a tow truck driver, Weird Al, and talk of eel smuggling.

How I plan to hang pictures

2011-07-08T15:09:00.006-07:00

Two things I want to have in my future house: permanent picture frames and photo corners.

The idea with a permanent frame is that it would be glassless, perhaps with a painted cork back or clips to hold things in place. But it would just stay where it is, fixed to the wall, and I could hang up the drawing of the week or something fun.

We've got a family picture wall in our apartment which consists of pictures with tape on the back stuck up on the wall. I like that it can be easily rearranged, but I don't like that the edges are always curling. So someday I'd like to install a whole mess of metal picture corners on the wall. That way I can switch pictures in and out while still having the whole thing be somewhat permanent.

That's all really.

The allergy sufferer's anxiety at the graduation ceremony

2011-04-14T10:20:00.007-07:00

Lately my rhinitis has been bad enough that I've resorted to just sticking a tissue up my nose and walking around the house that way.* It keeps my hands free, which is nice, but it's starting to become a habit, and I sometimes have to remind myself not to do it in public.

I'm mostly at peace with the fact that I'm going to spend the next sixty years constantly blowing my nose, but that doesn't mean it isn't a bit depressing. I'm the person people say "bless you" to eight times before they realize the sneezing isn't going to stop so they drop the charade of caring already. I'm the person in the theatre or lecture hall that's blowing their nose so violently no one can hear what's being said. I'm the person everyone assumes is sick, and they judge me for coming out in public and making other people sick, even though what I've got isn't catching.

I know I'm that person, and I've come to terms with it, but I just this morning realized that next week I have to sit through my graduation ceremony, and depending on how much dust there is and whether or not the girl sitting next to me happens to be wearing perfume, I may go through upwards of 50 Kleenexes in the space of two hours.

Do I bring an entire box with me? Where am I going to put them all once I've used them? Should I arrange to have a small trash can placed under my seat? We don't have assigned seats. I'll have to carry it on stage myself. Am I bold enough to take the stage carrying a small lined trash can and an entire box of Kleenex? That's pretty bold. Why not just bring an ottoman and make myself at home?

And when we get up to receive our diplomas, we're not supposed to take anything with us. Surely I can conceal one or two tissues in my left hand? I don't need my left hand for anything, do I? Or is that the hand I take the diploma with while I shake the Dean's right hand? Maybe I can rubber band them to my wrist. How long are the sleeves on my robe?

And on and on it goes. Maybe instead of worrying about it I should just embrace it already and bring a gigantic red and white spotted clown hanky that I can blow my nose into as ostentatiously as possible.

In short, I have no idea how I'm going to get through two hours without making a spectacle of myself.

*I have a tissue crammed up my nose right now. It's bliss.

What they're teaching me in school

2011-03-05T22:16:00.002-07:00

You should watch this. Right now.

And if you have time, this one.

And this one.

We're going to Eugene!

2011-03-03T14:33:00.004-07:00

No, not that Eugene, this Eugene.

Come fall, I will be back in Oregon where I belong! Woot!

Who FRTD?

2011-02-22T10:21:00.003-07:00

This Friday I get to go to an advance screening of the film I worked on last summer. You can see a trailer for "For Robbing the Dead" here.

Knowing that I'm finally going to see it now that it's completed and polished makes me a little bit giddy. It will take all my self control not to lean over to Optimistic. during the screening and poke him to point out the things I helped with (the shears on the table 10 seconds into the trailer? I picked those out.) It will be hard, but I will resist.

knit picking

2011-02-19T12:01:00.003-07:00

Is anyone out there a fantastically gifted knitter/crocheter? I need to commission a scarf with a phrase knitted into it, which is very much above my skill level. Chances are, one of you must be a closet crocheter, so speak up now and I will be forever grateful.

All aboard the nap train

2010-12-20T13:09:00.005-07:00

Dear World,

While fabric shopping, M-Lite and I discovered this awesome book. Someone needs to buy it for me for my birthday, but instead of giving it to me, hold onto it and make me the quilt. And then I will love that person for forever.

In other news, finals are done, but they were almost my undoing. Our computer died the Saturday before finals, right when I needed it the most for the typing of papers and take home finals. So instead of getting to do all those things at home in my pajamas I had to spend 13 hour chunks of time on campus, using library computers with keyboards whose keys jam up. Why won't you let me type the letter K? Why?!

But now I'm done, and can spend whole days doing nothing but reading and eating goldfish crackers. If you too enjoy reading and eating goldfish crackers give me a call and we can maybe get together.

cordially,

Genuine

It was itchy, but not unbearably so.

2010-11-13T10:18:00.005-07:00

I finally went in for allergy testing and now know that I am allergic to three kinds of trees, sagebrush, cats, dogs, house dust, and mites. This does not bode well. The last time I looked outside there were trees, and the last time I looked at my apartment there was house dust. I took steps to remedy the dust situation on my day off yesterday and decided to give my living room a deep clean. I knew it would cause some allergic reactions, but would be good for my health in the long run. So I set about cleaning all those hard to reach, behind the furniture sorts of places and the result was that in addition to dusting every single item in the room I also ended up rearranging all of our furniture. I like the new layout. It's a lot roomier now that the entertainment center is against a wall and not chunking off a whole corner of the room, but I keep being surprised every time I go in there. Optimistic. was more than a little surprised when he came home from work, but agreed that the new scheme is nice.

In other news, I will be graduating in April, assuming I pass a few upper level film classes this semester and next. But now that the end is near I don't want to leave, because I'm finally enjoying myself. I'm taking almost exclusively film classes and I get to TA beginning screenwriting, which is a lot of fun. However, Optimistic. has been more than a little patient hanging around Provo for three years after his graduation and we have plans to get him into grad school in the fall. Places we're looking at include University of Oregon, University of Washington, University of Michigan, and possibly somewhere in Japan. I'm rooting for the northwest options, but we'll see.

Mein bratwurst has a first name

2010-08-19T08:14:00.004-07:00

My sister H played tennis in high school, so sometimes I'd pick her up or drop her off at practice. One day I picked her up and she plopped down, sweating and completely exhausted, in the passenger seat. Then she asked me if she smelled bad. I told her she did, so she rolled down the window and made me promise to tell her if she ever had BO in the future. Sure, what are sisters for.

Later that day I passed her in the kitchen as she was singing the Oscar Mayer wiener song.

H: 'cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B-A-L-O-G-N-A!
Me (loudly): B-O!
H (frantically smelling herself): What, still?! I showered! How could I...
Me (giggling): No, not you - the song! It's B-O-L-O-G-N-A, not B-A-L-O-G-N-A.

H was relieved that she didn't stink and I was tickled to know that she really took my BO policing seriously, a power that I never did milk as much as I should have.

Up to the highest heights

2010-08-17T10:19:00.003-07:00

This morning I saw a house with a kite string coming out of an upstairs window. Obviously the people who live there don't care that I could have walked up and flown their house away. Some people are so careless.

The best four dollars I ever spent

2010-07-13T20:21:00.002-07:00

Do you remember dot matrix paper? I just bought a case of it for the sole purpose of tearing the edges off and making them into accordion snakes. I have 2300 sheets if anyone cares to join me.

The anniversary of our computer wedding

2010-07-03T18:44:00.004-07:00

There are a lot of new people in the ward for the summer, which means a lot of new introductions, so I'm constantly being asked by people how long we've been married. It's like being on a loop, repeating "two and a half years, two and a half years" over and over again, when if I had the time I'd answer "three years" and give the following explanation:

When we were still engaged, Optimistic. thought that we should buy a car together, because in all likelihood we'd need one as soon as the fall and we both shared cars with siblings. I was hesitant, because it was such a big commitment, but then he reminded me about the other commitment I'd made, you know, to marry him and spend forever with him, and suddenly buying a car didn't seem like that big a deal. So he researched a bit and we went to go test drive some used cars. We found our car and were signing for it, when the dealer asked how long we'd been married. We admitted that we weren't married yet, but would be in six months' time. He gravely typed away for a minute and then informed us that he was going to go ahead and marry us in the computer.

"Just on paper. When you're applying for a loan it looks better to be married as opposed to saying 'Hey, I want to buy a car with this girl I just met at a bus stop.'"

That sounded reasonable enough, so I was entered in under my future last name and we signed for the car. They let us drive it away right then and there, which neither of us was expecting, so we spent a giddy evening driving it around Provo. Eventually we ended up stopping to get frosties and celebrated by eating them on a play structure in the park. And since then we've done it every year around this time to celebrate the anniversary of our car, which coincides with our anniversary of being married in a computer.

You're turning violet, Violet!

2010-05-30T08:13:00.004-07:00

I'm at the point in my recovery where instead of having an ice pack pressed up against my face all day I now have to use a hot pack and chew gum. It supposedly helps ward off jaw stiffness. I don't normally chew gum, so I've found it hard to pick up the habit so late in life. I simply don't know what to do with a mouthful of gum. I'm not used to it being there, so my speech comes out all garbled. Also, I'm terrified that if I let my mind wander I'll revert to chewing it with a set of teeth that no longer exist, and that would be remarkably painful, so, constant vigilance! I know people who constantly need to be chewing on gum, but for me it's just another chore, like rinsing with salt water 4 times a day. Similarly irksome is the fact that brushing my teeth now literally requires both hands and a small flashlight.

Vacuum love

2010-05-29T08:57:00.004-07:00

I haven't vacuumed our apartment in ages, simply because we have a crappy upright vacuum that seems to make everything dustier than when I started, and after having worked for facility services on campus I'm accustomed to using industrial equipment. Solution: we purchased my dream vacuum - a Numatic NVQ 380-22, or what the WILK custodial staff calls a happy vac. It has a small head that gets into corners, it moves around and under furniture easily, and it's super quiet. It should arrive on Thursday, and you best better believe I'm going to vacuum the crap out this place, quite literally. Watch this video to see why I love Numatics so much.

Applesauce and medicine. Oh boy! Oh boy!

2010-05-28T20:05:00.004-07:00

My brother wins the admiration with the correct guess of "I'm not Grandpa!" Watch this Dexter episode and all will be revealed.

Livin' the dream

2010-05-28T06:17:00.006-07:00

Well, they're out. I went in yesterday and had to wait and wait and wait because my doctor was doing some other surgery at another building so I was a little ticked when he finally showed up. Mainly because it sucks to wait around for something that terrifies you, but also because I couldn't have anything to eat or drink beforehand.

That said, I don't even remember falling asleep and before I knew it I was awake and they were done. Optimistic. was there, and I talked to him, but I couldn't see him because of the oxygen thingus on my face, so I took it off and then told Optimistic. to go and ask if it was okay that I had. He left but was promptly told to lay down because he was colorless and woozy (medical stuff doesn't sit well with him). I told the nurse that he can't watch House, but it was through a lot of gauze, so maybe she only pretended to understand me. Anyway, I think it's a little funny that they had to clear Optimistic. to drive me home.

We got my prescriptions filled and headed home to where I had the sofa waiting for me with books, water, an ipod, tissues, and plastic spoons. The rundown of my day went something like this:

-ate applesauce and pills for lunch
-napped between changing my gauze and ice pack every hour
-listened to music all the while
-made the mistake of getting up to change my gauze in the bathroom mirror and ended up almost blacking out
-stayed on the couch after that
-ate pudding and pears for dinner. This took me 1 hour.
-had more pills
-watched A League of Their Own
-watched Much Ado About Nothing
-napped
-went to sleep on the couch

This morning I woke up and all the numbness was gone. It's nice to be able to feel my tongue, which should make mealtimes go a little faster. Also, I wasn't expecting to be able to walk around this much this soon. That said, I probably won't stray too far from the couch, simply because I'm lazy. What does today have in store? Some more movies, maybe a book, and a whole lot of napping.

The plus side of all of this is that Optimistic. may have finally gotten a decent night's sleep without me snoring next to him, and I get to watch all the movies he hates. Everybody wins, and all it took was me having costly surgery!

P.S. If any of you can come up with the correct 3-word phrase in response to what I had for lunch you will win my admiration. I'm looking at you, younger siblings.

A farewell to teeth

2010-05-26T10:04:00.005-07:00

I'm having my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, which means a week of pudding, painkillers, and Pollyanna. Wish me luck.

There's no business

2010-05-22T15:03:00.013-07:00

I spent all last semester doing research for a feature film being produced jointly by BYU and First Light Entertainment. Shooting began once school let out and I was on set for the first two weeks of May for the stuff being filmed at the LDS Motion Picture Studio which has a fake western town on its back lot. The weather was a bit temperamental, but I wore my pith helmet, which kept off both sun and rain quite nicely. Here are my two props crew-mates Tara and Jessica who are really hard core. I worked in the mornings and came to set in the afternoon, but they put in twelve hour days every day and are still going now that we're shooting on location.

That said, I'm hard core in my own way. Written into the script are several dead animals, which count as props, and guess who was in charge of them. Me. That's how I came to pluck three dead chickens and bake two rabbits in the last couple of weeks. Is this a bathtub full of dead chickens? Scientists agree that it is.

Scientists also agree that if you don't want your house to smell like a wet hen you shouldn't pluck a chicken indoors, so the last two I did on set. Also, plucking chickens that you got for free from a farm because they died mysteriously is not the most fun. But everyone was very impressed that I was able to go through with it three times, including cutting their heads off. Hopefully I will never have to handle a dead chicken ever again.

The upshot to being on set was that several name actors agreed to be in the film, including Edward Herrmann, who you may remember from such films as Annie, Overboard, and Saint Maybe as well as the show Gilmore Girls. It was really unprofessional of me, but I couldn't help snapping a few (dozen) pictures of him when he wasn't looking. Margot Kidder of Superman fame also agreed to play a significant role in the film and was a lot of fun to have on set. And now a few extra pictures.

This is our smoky saloon complete with 1st AD and town extras.

The head of the Art department mixing drinks.

Our director Tom Russell with Edward Herrmann

All in all it was a lot of fun, but I'm glad to be done. It's nice to get to spend time at home to rest and cook and read and in general, relax without having to worry that chicken #2's bottom is turning a weird shade of green.

P.S. I forgot to mention that John Gries of Napoleon Dynamite and Real Genius was also in the film and he gave me a shoulder punch!

Minty fresh motherly extortion

2010-05-10T07:38:00.005-07:00

In honor of yesterday being Mother's Day I wanted to share one of my favorite stories about my mom, who will probably be horrified by what I'm about to say, but here it is.

Once when we were shopping at Target my mom found a case of Andes mints on clearance for 12 cents a box. So she bought the whole case, because that's a great deal on mints. She then charged us kids a dollar a box if we wanted any. Her reasoning for charging us was that she didn't want us to eat too much chocolate, but we could afford it, so we ended up eating a lot of chocolate anyway and she ended up making a tidy profit. I think she made at least $50 off of us. I also think I have the best mom in the whole world.

Languishing in bread, to steal a phrase.

2010-04-26T12:16:00.004-07:00

Have you ever been dreaming and in that dream you're writing, scribbling furiously, a pencil clutched in your hand? Always when I wake up from that kind of dream I expect to find the pencil still in my hand, because my hand has clenched itself in my sleep. A few nights ago I dreamed I had a large twist of soft french bread. And in my dream I tore off a piece, held it in my hand, and popped it into my mouth. What happened then was that I immediately woke up owing to the fact that I had, in my sleep, put a crumpled up tissue into my mouth thinking it was dream bread. I always fall asleep with a tissue in my hand and I usually wake up with one crumpled inside either fist, but this is the first time my brain has taken a real-life fist clench and incorporated it into my dreams instead of the other way around.

So let it be written, so let it be done

2010-04-24T07:55:00.003-07:00

The semester is over. This is the only Saturday I have to enjoy myself before shooting starts and I am sick - the kind of sick where the inside of my nose looks and feels like cornflakes. So I will probably not be doing all those errands I meant to do today - like buying storage bins for the show's props, going to the fabric store so I can make a skirt, or showering. I'll be busy watching The Ten Commandments if anyone needs me.

p.s. I have a mouth ulcer in the back of my throat. This week may suck big time.

future battery and assault

2010-04-17T18:12:00.007-07:00

Dear Garrett of the HLRC,
Despite the accusations coming out of your smug face, I didn't lose your stupid power cord. It may have something to do with the fact that your incompetent staff didn't even check one out to me, so if you charge me for it I'll be forced to come back to the HLRC and give your shins the kicking of a lifetime.

Love,

Genuine P. Draft

English speaking ears

2010-04-16T13:05:00.003-07:00

I filmed another debate in Chinese today, but I don't speak Chinese, so I listened without understanding anything while my ears picked up on words that sounded like they could be English. In today's debate someone made a statement and the opposing side responded with something that sounded like "way huge homo". Now there's a clever rebuttal - your opponent traps you with his argument so you respond by calling him a way huge homo forcing the debate into an "am not- are too" direction. Or at least that's what I imagined was going on - like I said, I don't speak Chinese.

Click on this

2010-04-05T11:17:00.003-07:00

Friday I made a whole huge batch of chicken enchiladas, and after Optimistic. and I had had our way with them there were still six left over. So I froze them and can now enjoy an enchilada anytime I want, including right now. Scientists agree that this is possibly the best decision I have ever made, second only to deciding to like enchiladas.

Land sakes, her hair's as red as carrots!

2010-03-30T13:47:00.004-07:00

As many of you know, I'm a redhead. People often compliment me on my hair, which I think is weird, seeing as how it's something completely out of my control, like my bone structure or shoe size. Usually it's people my own age, but sometimes it's old men who say things like "sure do like that hair of yours Red." The fact is, I haven't done anything to deserve a compliment, so how am I supposed to respond to that? Today as I entered a bathroom on campus a girl came out of a stall and said "Your hair color is truly gorgeous" so I said what I always say. "Thanks. I grew it myself."

After she left I realized I ought to shake things up a bit and come up with a new response. Any ideas? The best one I can think of would be to clutch my head and scream "It's not for sale! Get away from my hair!" and then run out of the room.

in which I live to become one year older and wiser

2010-03-27T18:42:00.007-07:00

I had a most satisfactory birthday this year. To recap, I received:

-a package from my in-laws containing the third season of Psych, scratch-off lottery tickets (I won $6), and some Dr. Seuss books, including the ABC book, which I had memorized as a child - Aunt Annie's alligators, A A A!

-M-Lite got me two books. How to Fix It is an illustrated guide to doing handy things, like counter-sinking screws and replacing broken window panes. Book two is the Manual of American Dialects for Radio, Stage, and Screen. Optimistic. and I laughed ourselves silly trying to decipher phrases in different dialects. For example, "EE gwAHin gibv UHm EE hAWs" translates to "He's going to give him his horse".

-Whistler gave me The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency as well as a box of tissues. I assume the two gifts are unrelated, but I haven't read the book yet, so who knows.

-Ahem and Uffish gave me the most surprising gift - Hungry Hungry Hippos, which I assembled on the spot, after reading the instructional booklet, which had sections titled things like "Has your hippo lost its head?". Best of all, the hippos have names, one of them being Bottomless Potamus.

-Optimistic. purchased me not one, but four Harry Potter movies, which he cleverly disguised by wrapping up action figures along with them to create lumps in the packaging. Uffish insisted we watch Goblet of Fire right then and there because the guy who plays Barty Crouch Jr. also plays Dr. Who.

-My birthday package from home contained nothing but awesomeness, including a check for me to purchase a sewing machine with, four Powell's Books pint glasses, a book about how to build tree houses, pirate stickers, and a water bottle full of WINCO gummi worms. However, I didn't find my package on the doorstep until I left for class in the morning, so I was forced to bring it inside and head for campus without opening it. I spent the whole day tortured by the thought of not knowing what was inside.

I went and purchased my sewing machine on Wednesday and got a terrific deal on it. However, I know that if I use it now I'll get distracted and several end-of-semester papers won't get written, so I'm keeping the box sealed until after finals.

My birthday also included receiving a text from First Draft that wished me a nappy birthday instead of a happy birthday. Being pro nap I'm hoping that phrase catches on.

Slasher III: This time it's financial

2010-03-26T13:55:00.002-07:00

Budget cuts at work. Exciting times.

Pal, you got that moisture on your head.

2010-02-01T13:44:00.006-07:00

Today in screenwriting we were supposed to watch a movie and take notes on its structure, and I was fine with that until it started playing and I realized it was Groundhog Day. I may have mentioned before my fanatical need to preserve tradition? I could not sit there and watch Groundhog Day, because that would be sacrilege. I have to watch it on Groundhog Day, which is tomorrow. I also need to have a root beer float, and seeing as how it didn't look like my professor was ready to hand any out I decided to leave, because that, and a few other Groundhog Day-watching requirements just weren't being met.

My requirements:
1. It needs to be watched on Groundhog Day, preferably with family.
2. There will be root beer floats. Several of them. To be consumed by me.
3. I need to see the previews I grew up watching . The 1993 previews aren't on the DVD version, so I own it on VHS as well. It's just not the same without Mr. Jones, The Pickle, and El Mariachi.
4. I need to be able to talk during the movie, which I can't do in a room full of students. Why the need to talk? So I can imitate the sound Ned Ryerson makes that sounds like a cat purring underwater.
5. I need to dance to the weatherman song that plays as the end credits roll. Once again, not possible in a room full of my peers.

So, I'll be taking notes on the film's structure when I watch it tomorrow night, but that's okay, just so long as I get my root beer float and can say all the lines along with the movie.

"Buy me Bonestorm or go to Hell!"

2010-01-31T16:30:00.003-07:00

Being in a married student ward I'm used to there being plenty of noise during sacrament meeting, what with all the babies that are constantly murmuring, chattering, crying, etc. I put up with it because there's nothing I can do to stop it, but today something happened to make me appreciate children making noise in church. During the last talk we heard a small voice in the congregation say "sh*t". And then this anonymous small child proceeded to repeat the word over and over again to himself every 3 seconds. Clearly, to him it was just a nonsense word, and he had no idea what he was saying, but I just about died trying to keep from laughing.

Out of Africa? Order some more!

2010-01-30T15:27:00.006-07:00

1. Yesterday I watched Out of Africa, which turned out to be the most boring film ever made, so when there was a particularly slow scene I'd imagine a lion springing out of nowhere and attacking Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. That helped things somewhat. I also watched The Shawshank Redemption, which was just as good as I remembered.

2. We got some gift cards to Home Depot for Christmas so last night we browsed around and picked up some stuff for around the house - energy saver lightbulbs, a new dustpan, that sort of thing. But my favorite purchase was some good quality rags. I realize they're just rags, but having good rags makes a big difference when you're cleaning. I'm excited about them.

3. I'm taking exclusively film classes this semester. This is a lot of film. Too much film as it turns out. I'm taking documentary and non-fiction history, in which he lectures, we watch some shorter clips and then we watch a feature length film. Then I have film history, WWII to the present, in which we get some background lecture before we watch a feature. One night a week I have a transcendence in film class, which is really interesting. We discuss our readings and viewings, and then we watch a feature. I'm also taking screenwriting, in which we do not usually watch a movie, thank goodness. So I watch at least five films in class per week, three on Thursdays alone. Thursdays are long.

4. I finished the promotional film I was making for work, only to have my boss decide that it needed to be subtitled in Chinese the day before he left for China. I do not speak Chinese. It is a miracle that it got finished in time.

5. My W-2 finally came in the mail. I was unemployed for most of last year, but I was still surprised to find that I only paid $13.65 in taxes.

I could have died

2009-11-08T09:28:00.005-07:00

Were you guys ever afraid of toilet monsters/snakes attacking you while you went to the bathroom? I used to be, and now I am again. Yesterday I went in to use the bathroom and I found a giant spider half hiding under the back rim of the toilet seat. Luckily I saw it, but then I didn't know what to do. I eventually decided to throw water on it to force it into the bowl so I could flush it. But I was still scared to go to the bathroom after that, and I really had to go to the bathroom. So the thrilling conclusion to this tale is that I decided to go to the bathroom in the hopes that whatever I sent down after it would thoroughly kill the spider even more. And now I check the toilet every time I use it, just like how I always used to check the shower as a kid, you know, in case a psycho-killer was hiding in there. Man, bathrooms are scary.

Labor day presents - they're gonna be big

2009-09-26T16:43:00.004-07:00

I finally bought the one thing I've been wanting that Optimistic. refused to buy for me as a Labor Day present. His argument was that there are no such things as Labor Day presents. My argument was that there is a huge present-less void in my life between my birthday in March and Christmas in December. So I bought myself this awesome receiver, which has a handy pick-up/hang-up button and volume control built into it. Plus it will be amazing to have a nice curly phone line coming out of my purse seemingly attached to nothing. Despite the picture I got it in black - red is just a little too conspicuous and would clash with my hair.

I am Lawyer, hear me roar

2009-09-25T20:10:00.003-07:00

This morning when I was half awake my brain confused the words lawyer and legend, so I present to you this list:

-I Am Lawyer
-Lawyers of the Fall
-The Lawyer of Zorro
-Urban Lawyer
-The Lawyer of Zelda
-Sinbad: Lawyer of the Seven Seas
-The Lawyer of Bagger Vance
-The Lawyer of Sleepy Hollow

A face only a fellow hobo could love

2009-09-24T18:54:00.004-07:00

Okay folks - Hobo Fest is tentatively scheduled for one month from today on Saturday October 24th. Things to look forward to may include:

-Mulligan stew
-The parade of hobos beauty pageant
-One man's trash is another man's treasure hunt
-Hobo feats of strength
-Hungry hungry hobos eating contest
-The crowning of a hobo King and Queen

Be excited.

Can robots pee? These are the questions we need answers to!

2009-09-23T16:01:00.005-07:00

While using Garage Band I tried adding some Robotic Tambourine just to spice things up. As you can see, I only had a short clip so the program shortened it to "Robo Urine", which I find immensely funny.

RAWR

2009-09-16T21:30:00.004-07:00

Quick update. I am in school and I have a job.

School: I am taking the last of my GE classes this semester, which means I have Pearl of Great Price, New Testament, and Art History to get through and then I am done with GE's for forever. I am also taking TMA 291- film history, and TMA 241 -beginning screenwriting. Screenwriting takes up a lot of my time, but I think it will be worth it. Basically I am now tired all of the time - for realsie7.

My new job: I am a video editor for the BYU Chinese Flagship Center. I'm still learning how to do my job, but I have hope that someday I will actually learn how to do everything I'm supposed to know how to do. Most importantly it's a job that's specific to my major, has flexible hours, and pays well. Plus the office I use is called the dragon office, which sounds mysterious. But really it's because half of it is filled with an honest to goodness Chinese dragon, like the kind you'd see in a parade.

Church stuffs: I had my first enrichment activity where we did freezer paper stencils. A lot of people came which was nice but also kind of hectic, because I couldn't police everyone and some people got ahead of me before I could keep them from doing things wrong. But everyone had a good time and things turned out well.

Also, I had to give a talk about fellowshipping on Sunday, but it went very well if I do say so myself. I focused on how to actually create friendships within a married student ward (which can be tricky) and I threw in some stories here and there to highlight my points. A lot of people said they enjoyed it, so I feel pretty relieved knowing I did a good job and that I won't have to speak again for a while.

So, I've been really busy and it looks like it's going to stay that way all semester. Except I have extracurricular stuff that needs planning, like hobo fest, and the second curtain rod that needs to go up in the living room, and all the dishes that accumulate every day when I'm not looking.

Oh my

2009-08-26T14:46:00.006-07:00

I got fairly sunburned in Lincoln City which means that in 5 days when school starts my face will be peeling like crazy and all the cool kids will think that I am gross. Sunburns suck. In other news, I have two more onesies to show you.

This is Lions and Tigers and Bears

And this is Smokey the Bear. I think it's pretty awesome.

What I've been up to, in reverse order

2009-08-11T10:14:00.014-07:00

1. PAINTING - Since Bony M and Audrey posted about doing freezer paper stencils I wanted to try my hand at it. And since I was recently called to be my ward's enrichment leader I thought it would make for a fun activity. And I couldn't organize an activity without buying all the supplies and testing it out. The conclusion? I'm addicted. Currently I'm stenciling on onesies since I didn't want to start out on anything too big and I thought it would win over the Relief Society crowd knowing they can make cute customized clothes for their kids or as gifts for one of the many many sisters ready to go into labor before the year is out. So I made the following incredibly awesome onesies -As you can see they are Uncle Sam and Totoro. I know you all want one. Uncle Sam may look out of place on a onesie, but I still think it's awesome. I have a Napoleon Bonaparte stencil that I may do next.

2. LOAFING AND COOKING -I am still unemployed, which is a bit depressing, but I get to spend my days doing stuff around the house I wouldn't ordinarily have time to get to, and I read a lot of good books last month. I'm also developing my taste buds a little. Last month I made Mexican rice with beans and cheese and sour cream and lettuce and taquitos on the side. A year ago I wouldn't have eaten any of those things, and especially not mixed together. But I mashed it all up with my fork and ate it. It was delicious.
I took this picture to represent my typical day -I was working my way through the Harry Potter series, I have my remote for movie watching, and there's my leftover homemade Mexican food.

2. HOME IMPROVEMENT - I decided to put up curtains in our living room to help keep out the hot Utah sun. We have blinds, but the light shines right through them even when they're closed. I actually lined two of the windows with wrapping paper, which is very effective in keeping out the light, but not so picturesque. Plus our walls look pretty drab and they're full of holes where previous tenants had put up curtains and shelves and taken them back down again. I mean, who takes a curtain rod with them when they move? Anyway, here's the before picture -As you can see it looked ridiculous. Here's how it looks now. Much better, except now the room looks a little Christmas-y. I can deal with that in a room that's now 15 degrees cooler.4. SMASHING STUFF - Optimistic.'s family likes to smash old appliances. It's pretty fun. Leaps told us he had a monitor to smash and we in turn told him that we had an old DVD player that needed some forced dismantling, so we got together in the street where we live. Here are some smashing pictures.

Before

During

After

Good Times. And now I'm planning for our road trip home to Portland next week where we will see Elder Carp who gets off his mission in two days. We will also hang out with lots of my family, go to my brother Rough Draft's Eagle Court of Honor, go to the beach for a weekend, and I will hopefully get to eat at Shari's, shop at Powell's, buy gummi worms at WINCO, and in general, enjoy myself.

Making a comeback

2009-07-30T20:18:00.003-07:00

A month after having had this tooth pulled I'm finally able to chew on both sides of my mouth without having to think about it. For a while there it took a lot of concentration to eat and brush my teeth, but now it's like riding a bicycle. Yet despite all this healing, recently my gums have been hurting near where my molar was pulled and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was infected? Or there could be some gingivitis going on all up in there? Today I felt around and discovered that what my dentist had told me was unlikely to happen is happening -my wisdom tooth is dropping down to take the place of my missing molar. Apparently I'm teething. Now I know what all those babies are always wailing about.

They put anti-freeze in the wine!

2009-07-08T12:36:00.007-07:00

We've taken the plunge and signed up for Netflix. I'm thrilled about it. We own hundreds of movies but we've seen them all dozens of times and are bored with them. So far I've watched Auntie Mame and Empire Falls and there's more goodness on the way. Best of all we're getting Season 1 disc 3 of the Simpsons because it has the episode Crepes of Wrath where Bart goes to France.

I had to go through and rate some movies on the site to give them an idea of what our tastes are, and then they recommend films. One of the recommendations amused me -it was for the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, which I absolutely love -it's my favorite version and I've seen it countless times. And it was recommended because I favorably rated season two of Arrested Development, which if you've seen it you know that it really doesn't have much in common with P&P -nothing that is, except that they are both extremely witty.

I've tried for years to explain to people why I love Pride and Prejudice and why they should watch it, but I get nothing but protests that it's a girly film. What they don't seem to get is that I am not very girly myself and therefore have no more interest in watching a five hour long chick flick than they do. I don't watch Pride and Prejudice to ogle Colin Firth or swoon over the prospect of Jane and Bingley or Darcy and Elizabeth getting together. I watch P&P because it's funny -it has some of the funniest characters out of any film I've ever seen.

Mr. Bennet has great banter, Mr. Collins is obsequious and ridiculous without realizing it, and Mr. Bingley has absolutely no will of his own - his sisters decide his life out from under him. I know people just like them in real life. (I firmly believe that everyone has their own real-life Mr. Collins.)

Then there are moments like the conversation between Mrs. Bennet and her sister Mrs. Phillips where they abuse Mr. Wickham and declare that they always knew him to be no good. It's a great comedic moment, and if it doesn't make you laugh then you're probably dead inside. I find that a lot of the characters are very realistic and I never fail to find connections between the book and my own life, not in an unrealistic "I wish my Mr. Darcy would come" kind of way, but in simple moments. The other day I was sitting in my oppressively hot living room and had a lady Catherine de Bourgh moment as I thought to myself "this is a most inconvenient sitting room in the summer. Why, the windows are full west!"

In short, watch the movie. I have never known anyone to be sorry for taking the plunge and submitting to the hilarity that is Pride and Prejudice.

Because of this and hypodontia I'm down by three, but I'll catch up

2009-06-17T07:56:00.006-07:00

I had my tooth extracted. I went in yesterday and found out that they were ready to get down to business, either by starting another root canal or having it extracted, so asked if I could just have it pulled. The tooth could have been salvaged, but it just didn't seem worth it to me because a) it's my very back tooth, which means I technically can do without it b) no one ever even sees it and c) there was the cost to consider. To do another root canal would have cost $1200 and taken weeks and weeks to get done. To get this tooth pulled? $110 and the actual process took about fifteen minutes. It was, by the way, one of the weirdest sensations I've ever felt. No pain, just a lot of pressure that left me gripping my armrests.

When it was all over they gave me a long list of instructions - no straws, no soup, no spitting, no smoking, but the key word they used was suction, or negative pressure. That's what it all comes down to. I'm not to create any kind of suction in my mouth, which I must say requires a lot of concentration on my part. I'm also supposed to keep my tongue away from the hole, so I fell asleep trying to keep my tongue in place and had nightmares that it had somehow touched the hole and now I had dry socket, the most feared consequence of oral surgery caused by tongue touching and allowing suction to exist inside your mouth. Also, it turns out that estrogen plays a factor in getting dry socket and I've been informed by leading experts that I have some of this so called estrogen right inside my body! But I'm not too worried -dry socket normally occurs when bottom teeth are pulled.

On the flip side, I have felt zero pain since I had this tooth removed. It does not hurt at all, which is a great relief. And I have found my new calling in life -napping. Also, Optimistic. brought me home a huge Jamba Juice that I spoon fed to myself very carefully (no straws, remember?) and it was delicious. I have watched 3 of the 4 Anne of Green Gables tapes, Mansfield Park, and something called Jane Austen Regrets. Granted, I am unemployed so there's a very good chance I would have watched all those movies and taken all those naps anyway.

P.S. I got to keep my tooth, and it is enormous! I am going to put it under my pillow and demand $1 from the tooth fairy i.e. Optimistic., and if he refuses I will chase him around the house with my tooth until he pays up.

P.P.S. M-Lite was kind enough to take me to the dentist because Optimistic. was at work, so thank you M-Lite -I will make sure your birthday gift is of extra-good quality this year.

Why I love my dentist

2009-06-15T09:00:00.006-07:00

I'm in the middle of some dental work, meaning that last summer when I actually had money I started getting my teeth taken care of -a really thorough cleaning, 4 deep fillings, and two root canals. Root canals take multiple visits so I ended up seeing the dentist every other week from June to September to get everything done. Except it never all got finished. By the time I was in the middle of my second root canal I ran out of insurance money for the year, and after that we lost our insurance, so my #15 (back, top left) tooth has had a gaping hole in it for 9 months.

Because my tooth is hollowed out food naturally gets stuck in there (especially peanuts). I remedy this by using 20 or so toothpicks every day. I have toothpick dispensers all around the house and in my purse -I use them constantly. Then last week I was picking something out of my teeth and something came out that wasn't supposed to -a bit of the pulp cap that separates my tooth's roots from the outside world. I was in excruciating pain Saturday morning -all I could do was cry really, the pain was so bad, and dentist's offices are never open on the weekends. I've spent the last two days taking tylenol and coating my gums with anbesol (sweet blessed anbesol) while I waited until I could make an appointment.

Here's why I love my dentist's office and why you should go there too:

1) I have not been to this dentist in 9 months, but the second I told Judy the receptionist my name she remembered exactly who I am.

2) She immediately went to go get my chart to see what work had been done on the tooth in question. She didn't hassle me about cleanings or six month checkups.

3) At the end of every visit Judy schedules your next appointment, tells you what's next in your treatment schedule and exactly how much it's going to cost. Absolutely no surprises -every time I came for an appointment I knew how much it was going to cost me. At my home dentist I once went in and ended up having a surprise root canal done for $1500. That was really upsetting at the time.

4) The dentists themselves are really nice guys -competent, funny, very good at what they do. They're also very understanding -I have a wisdom tooth that needs to come out- it keeps getting infected, but instead of lecturing me about it they deduced that it was a financial problem and let it go. I have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow where they're going to check out my tooth, hopefully give me a massive dose of anything to stop the pain and discuss options.

5) I just like the feel of their office. It's small and doesn't look too modern -I don't like offices that try to make everything look super high-tech. Basically, I don't get the vibe that my dental work is paying for my dentist to have a yacht. Mainly I like Judy. Whatever they're paying her it can't be what she's worth.

My dentist is Dr. David G. Lee. Look him up.

It's mentioned in that one scene in You've Got Mail when Meg Ryan is crying in Fox Books

2009-06-04T13:28:00.003-07:00

One of my favorite books is Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, so I was excited when I found out a movie was being made of it. But then it never came out, or so I thought. Apparently the BBC released it on TV in 2007. They've tweaked a few things in the plot giving Sylvia an illness and a love interest, but most of it is very true to the book. Anyway, it's on youtube in 9 segments and it's pretty well done, so I encourage you to watch it if you've read the book. If you haven't read the book you should check it out. That is all.

I choose not to run for president in 1928

2009-06-03T15:46:00.010-07:00

Since I'm home for most of the day every day I've taken to changing things around the house. In the living room I put up my fake clock (which always throws people off when they realize it's cardboard) as well as some of my slang flash cards.

There also used to be a stuffed maroon thing above the kitchen sink that I've never cared for, but when I tried to take it down once I found that it was covering up some holes in the wall.

So I finally thought of what to put in its place - my Presidents of the United States educational place mat! Now I can do the dishes and learn about the presidents at the same time.

Also, true to my love of making things out of cardboard I made a toilet paper holder for my bathroom out of some boxes I had. It holds eight rolls and is slightly asymmetric (on purpose of course).

Somebody, anybody, put me to use

2009-05-29T12:56:00.008-07:00

I've been meaning to post and end the lull in blogging, but so much has happened in the past month I'd never be able to do it justice. In short, we've taken two trips to Portland -one for a week and the other for a weekend- and just Wednesday we went to the MTC to see Matt off on his mission to Salt Lake. Next weekend we're going to Las Vegas for Optimistic.'s Grandpa's 80th birthday. After that we should be done with traveling for a while until we go home again in August. The biggest news with me is that I am unemployed. Despite needing a job for these last six months I have found absolutely nothing, so if you hear of anything, let me know.The following is a list of things I wish I could put on my resume somewhere:

-I can make anything out of cardboard
-I can defuse any situation with humor
-I know how to make playdough
-Winner of best Halloween costume 2006 -dressed as a ham
-Winner of best Halloween costume 2007 -dressed as a side-by-side refrigerator
-I personally made all but two of my sister's art projects during her entire High School career
-Skit writer and ode composer for YW Girl's Camps 1998-2004
-I successfully planned for and hosted The Moppies (a formal award show for Facility Services staff) for two consecutive years
-I make delicious peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
-I know what "cheddar" is slang for
-Fact: I never show up late to anything
-Further fact: I never do a second rate job on anything
-Biggest fact of all: I'm awesome at everything I do and somebody out there should give me a job

Fresh butter

2009-04-23T06:39:00.005-07:00

I woke up literally seconds ago, and this is the earthshatteringly good idea I just had. Why no one has never thought of it before now amazes me. Ready? A winter wedding where instead of it being all winter wonderlandy the dress code is Christmas sweaters. Clearly I am a genius. This ranks up there with the time I thought I could turn an empty mascara tube into a portable butter churn, because, you know, who wouldn't love to have fresh butter available to them at all times? The only difference between the two ideas is that shamefully I was wide awake when I invented the miniature butter churn.

P.S. I could not find any Christmas sweater wedding dresses. Perhaps a more intensive google search is in order.

Mucus free since 2:53

2009-04-22T17:09:00.006-07:00

Thursday night I started a nasty cold. Finals started on Friday, so I fit them in between blowing my nose, wearing my pajamas, and drinking a lot of water. Today I took two finals and I am done. Sweet freedom until the Fall!

I also shot and edited my final fiction film for TMA 185 in under 24 hours. Optimistic. appears as a cowboy, Spinelli is the office love interest for my protagonist, and a lot of classmates and friends came through for me by acting, running sound, and providing costumes and props.

Despite being sick I went to church on Sunday because I missed last week when I made the mistake of eating year old Easter candy which resulted in something of an upset stomach. Stupid malt eggs. Stupid delicious jelly beans.

A few days ago we decided to order a pizza, so I called it in under my name and later we went to pick it up. When the pizza guy went into the back to get it he came back empty handed asking if there was a first name that went with the order, and I had to respond that the name I'd given him was my first name. People ask me that all the time and it never ceases to bother me. We described the order and he came back with it saying it had been under the name Merrill, which is not even close to my name. I was stuffed up when I called in and things had sounded fairly noisy on their end, but seriously, how did they get "Merrill" out of "Genuine"? If you've seen the show How I Met Your Mother it's like the time Barney's coffee order had "Swarley" written on it, so they called him names like Swarles, Swarlos, Swarles Barkley, and Swarhili.

I am also thrilled to be going on a roadtrip to Portland in only a few short days. If any of you want something from Powell's just let me know and I'll pick it up for you.

It was only a matter of time

2009-03-30T11:27:00.005-07:00

It finally happened, just as I knew it someday would -someone mistook me for being pregnant (which I am not) and I was forced to say, "nope, not pregnant, I'm just obese." So really this day has nowhere to go but up.

Stache Bash '09

2009-03-19T10:09:00.003-07:00

I managed to stretch the birthday to almost a week. Friday was the mustache goodness, Saturday we ate at the hospital cafe with the family and then went to see the Thrillionaires, a long-form improv comedy group. The first half they put on a play.The second half was a musical. Both were impressive. Sunday we had Sunday dinner with the family. Monday was my actual birthday and it was fairly crappy- my documentary got torn to shreds in class and no packages came. But Tuesday we went to the movies and Burgers Supreme with Uffish and yesterday my package from home came as well as Optimistic.'s gift. All in all a good haul this year. I received:

-A book entitled "How to traumatize Your Children" from Bony M. It's a self hurt book and is very funny.
-"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "Squids Will Be Squids", a Target Gift card and goldfish crackers from Optimistic.'s family. I poured goldfish into my mouth straight from the carton while reading Cloudy
-"The Mysterious Benedict Society" from Whistler. I got this on Friday and spent all my spare moments Saturday and Sunday reading it. It was delightful.
-Potato Head Pals from the Swisses. They're shaped like a carrot, an ear of corn, and a regular potato. I hope to play with them in church and make all the children jealous.
-Hercules and Anastasia from M-Lite and Spinelli. I immediately watched Anastasia on Saturday morning.
-A Wendy's gift card from my classmate R -put to good use on Monday. Mmmm... homestyle chicken go wraps.
-Two very nice cards from my Grandparents Draft and Optimistic.'s Grandparents in Orem, both very thoughtfully containing money prizes.
-Goldfish crackers from my VTee N -cheddar and pizza flavored and also basketball themed
-Kosher baby dill pickles and Pez from my other VTee W
-Icecream Larry and The Hotel Larry by Daniel Manus Pinkwater from Optimistic., which will add nicely to my growing collection of children's book. My only dilemma in owning all these books is that I have no desire to let children get their hands on them. Children are sticky. Children color on books and tear pages. Children are destructive vandals so they had better get their own copy someday.
-My birthday box from home contained paper cups with animal noses on them, Tikki Tikki Tembo, Tangerine, a very nice spill-proof water bottle that I'm drinking from at this very moment, Hercules (which I will need to return), A Diary of a Whimpy Kid, a $50 gift card, comics from The Oregonian, and a fibromyalgia cookbook that's on its way.
-I also received a voice mail from M-Lite that said "Happy Birthday" in a throaty drawn out whisper.Bless her.

Frigidaire

2009-02-24T20:30:00.007-07:00

Here are some more pictures from my phone. These are from two Halloweens ago when I went as a side by side refrigerator. I had food and all sorts of stuff on my insides, and then on the outside I had magnets, wedding announcements, pictures, the whole she-bang. People were eating bananas and oatmeal cream pies out of me.Here I am checking the fridge. Guess which one's me. Also, check out my cord.

When I was done with my costume I did what I do every year -I took it the parking lot of the old ward and set it on fire. Unfortunately I also set the parking lot itself on fire. I don't know how or why, just that it kept smoldering. Finally I went up to #15 and asked for a pitcher of water.
That stove in the right hand side of the picture was quaking with fear. If any of your appliances give you any trouble, show them this picture and it will straighten them right out.

P.S. This costume severely limited my arm movement. All the parties I wore it to consisted of me setting food on top of my fridge close to my mouth and trying to eat without using my hands. But it was still better than the year I dressed as a ham and people fed me through my eye hole.

One size fits all

2009-02-15T08:34:00.002-07:00

Tiny candy bars are always labeled as "fun sized" or "bite sized". The bar of soap I opened this morning was labeled as being "bath sized". What does that even mean?

Airport Skank

2009-02-13T13:25:00.004-07:00

I recently bought a new phone, not because I needed one, but because I've had my old phone for a number of years and someone from Sprint called me up and urged me to go in and get my free upgrade, so I did. Unfortunately, nothing form my old phone transferred over to my new phone. No contacts, no pictures, no ring tone of my sister singing Rafi's Banana Phone song. This was devastating. Upon finding out that nothing was going to switch over I mourned the loss of my data, but my pictures especially. I don't have the cables necessary to get pictures off my phone and I can't text them to my email because I don't text. It seemed my pictures from the last two years would go the way of Darling Clementine and be lost and gone forever. Long story short my sister found a way to get the pictures to me in a daring SIM card switcheroo so I've decided to post some of my more cherished pictures over the next little while.

This is the airport skank and was labeled as such in my phone. While picking up my sister's bestie from the airport last Easter I saw this girl at the baggage claim. Her "dress" was impossibly short and made of spandex. The front was covered in rhinestones. I had to wonder about this girl. Did she wake up and say "I'm flying to Salt Lake today, I wonder if I should dress like I belong in a brothel?" I think she must have. I could only get a picture of her from behind, but that's where the true beauty of this outfit comes into play. As if her outfit isn't terrible enough, if you look closely there's a brown stain on her bottom. And although you can't see them in the picture she was also wearing really high white platform strappy shoes. Let's just say that when I found out I might not get to keep my pictures I thought of this one first. What? No airport skank picture? What will I do? Also, Airport Skank, if you're reading this, I thank you for the humor you have provided and apologize for comparing you to a whore. In short, I wish you well Airport Skank.

Homesville

2009-02-05T10:53:00.004-07:00

Today I am in the weak and smelly stage of being sick. It is tons o' fun. I went to classes yesterday for twelve hours despite being sick because Wednesdays are my big day and I had lots of stuff due. But Optimistic. has been really nice -today he scrubbed the tub and suggested I take a relaxing bath. I am sure his offer is sincere and has nothing to do with the way I smell. He also gave me my Valentine's day present early - a whole huge carton of goldfish crackers! I feel very blessed despite being filled to the brim with snot.

Weak sauce

2009-01-30T18:01:00.005-07:00

I was doing the dishes today (because the situation in our kitchen was getting a bit dire) and I cut my finger in two places. The weird thing is that it wasn't on a knife or any other utensil. It wasn't even on a broken dish. It was on food. I want you all to picture the least dangerous food you can think of. What cut me? Spaghetti sauce.That's right, spaghetti sauce. I tried to open an empty jar of spaghetti sauce so I could rinse it out and the sauce around the mouth of the jar had hardened to form jagged razor-sharp crusts, two of which cut me when I tried to open the jar. I have learned my lesson and will never do the dishes again. Or I suppose the other take away message might be to not leave old jars by the sink for weeks on end.

I hardly knew ye

2009-01-15T16:31:00.008-07:00

First things first -Optimistic.'s beard is coming in nicely and no longer looks as though he simply hasn't shaved in a bit. I took a picture of just his beard but it looked silly without the rest of his face in it so I took a second one without telling him that his face would be seen.

Second things second -Yesterday was the two year mark for the floss being tied around my pinky and I decided to take it off. Most of the time I didn't even notice it was there, but I felt it wouldn't be wise to leave it on any longer. I am very well aware that no one cares about the floss in the slightest, but I captured the whole process and will post the pictures here.
Notice if you can that when the floss is moved away from my finger there's a red line running around it where the floss is.

This is when it had actually been cut.

Me pretending to be sad. Notice the lip.

In this one you can see the dent it left in my finger. I think it will fade over time and won't be permanent, but if it is I will have a great lie to tell when playing two truths and a lie about how it got chopped off in a freak accident and had to be reattached.

the waiting, it kills me

2008-12-26T18:13:00.005-07:00

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

2008-12-24T12:19:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-23T08:39:00.004-07:00

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!

2008-12-19T15:51:00.003-07:00

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)

2008-12-07T18:14:00.004-07:00

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

2008-11-21T12:38:00.002-07:00

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

2008-11-18T14:37:00.005-07:00

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

2008-10-30T15:17:00.003-07:00

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

2008-10-23T18:22:00.003-07:00

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!

2008-09-18T11:41:00.004-07:00

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

2008-09-12T11:47:00.003-07:00

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

2008-08-19T09:41:00.007-07:00

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!

2008-08-13T15:54:00.004-07:00

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

2008-08-13T15:35:00.004-07:00

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

2008-08-11T11:39:00.002-07:00

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

2008-08-05T16:29:00.004-07:00

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

2008-07-14T17:43:00.005-07:00

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!

2008-07-03T08:19:00.004-07:00

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

2008-06-26T16:33:00.002-07:00

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

2008-06-21T07:09:00.003-07:00

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.

2008-06-18T12:29:00.005-07:00

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

2008-06-04T12:44:00.002-07:00

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

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

Look, you get porridge!

2008-05-27T12:21:00.005-07:00

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

2008-05-25T11:14:00.004-07:00

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

2008-05-25T07:12:00.005-07:00

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

2008-05-04T16:22:00.006-07:00

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!

2008-04-18T13:48:00.003-07:00

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!

2008-03-25T19:56:00.003-07:00

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

2008-03-15T10:02:00.003-07:00

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]

2008-02-28T15:13:00.006-07:00

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

2008-02-23T09:52:00.005-07:00

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)

2008-02-14T17:43:00.004-07:00

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)

2008-01-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-01-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-01-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

Wrapped around my finger

2008-01-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-01-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Was that English?

2007-12-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

I'm married. Whee! Also, my brother won the eat off with a total of five fajitas and five glasses of lemonade to his credit. And half an Ooey gooey chewy sundae. I really do love that family of mine.

The Great Escape

2007-12-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

My pre-wedding movie countdown might go something like this:

The Wedding Singer
The Corpse Bride
Runaway Bride
Father of the Bride
Four Weddings and a Funeral
My Best Friend's Wedding
The Princess Bride
The Bride to Terabithia
The Bride on the River Kwai
A Bride Too Far

Wallace and Davis

2007-12-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

I came home today, took off my shoes, went over to the computer, and opened up the itunes before realizing that I didn't even want to listen to anything except the sound of the rain outside.

Also, I went to the dentist yesterday, and there's a very good chance I'll be having three root canals as well as all of my wisdom teeth taken out. There's nothing ahead for me but blue skies, vicodin, pudding, and vicodin in pudding.

The garbage called in dulcet tones

2007-12-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

My last day of restaurant work is fast approaching. Next Wednesday. That means that today was my last day of Friday-type work, and tomorrow will be my last Saturday of working, there or anywhere else. I was a bit apprehensive about today, because weekends at work can be a bit crazy. I usually get completely stressed out and end up crying all over the place once I leave work. A few weeks ago there was some sort of state sports thing going on, and guess where all the teams came to eat afterward? I had a line of 180 people come through, and it was far from pleasant. But today was remarkably peaceful, and I enjoyed myself a lot.

I saw a man go through the salad bar with his small son. The man went on one side, so his son wandered over to the other side and promptly reached up and grabbed a whole handful of sprouts. My manager saw him do it, but it was too late. The deed was done, and the kid happily munched on his fistful of sprouts all the way back to his table. I got to talk to customers a bit as they came through, which I don't normally do, and I realized that I could have liked these people all along if I hadn't been so busy hating them. I hated everyone who came through my line for a while. They had committed the mortal sin of ordering pasta, and what's more, they enjoyed their pasta enough to come back for seconds and thirds. How dare you love my fresh made fettuccine made lovingly from scratch with the finest ingredients!

There are two people that come through my line often enough that I know who they are, if not their names. One man comes every Monday and chats with me and asks me about my life, and is fairly up to date. He asks me clarifying questions, like "Now, you guys have already found a place to live down here, is that right? And you're getting married in Portland?"
I don't even know his name. He comes every week and orders at least 4 platefuls of pasta. Next week will be my last Monday, so I think I will ask him how he got started coming every Monday, and what his name is.

The second guy is younger, probably around 23, and he's very enthusiastic about pasta. This is what he said to me today, almost verbatim.

"Genuine, I don't think you really appreciate this pasta as much as you could. I mean, I love this pasta. Do you appreciate it? This is my favorite pasta in the world."

I asked him if he liked it better than his mother's pasta. The answer was an emphatic yes. He extolled the virtues of my pasta a while longer, and then asked me for four meatballs.

A woman who came through today and it went like this:

Her: I'd like fresh fettuccine
Me: The fresh made fettuccine? (and I started to scoop out some of the fresh made)
Her: No, I wanted the black pepper, the pasta that I saw you extruding earlier. That pasta. I love my pasta al dente, and everything that's out here has been sitting around for a while.
Me: I haven't cooked that pasta dough yet.
Her: I'll wait.
Me: No, the Garlic and herb fettuccine and the Black pepper rotate, so I'll be cooking the Garlic and herb next. I won't be cooking the Black pepper I made today until tomorrow.
Her: It's just that I love my pasta al dente, you know? There's nothing like eating pasta that's just been tossed in.

I eventually agreed to lay all my other cooking aside, take a small portion of the Black pepper, and spend six minutes cooking it especially for her.

Also, the dish machine was broken for a bit today, as it often is, but I happened to be downstairs in the break room while they were fixing it. The door to the machine room was open and I could see inside to where the pipes are, and it was remarkable. This one set of pipes I was looking at kept jiggling about, up and down, and all over the place, and I realized that it looked for all the world like that one bit in "The Goonies" where they're pulling on the pipes of the country club and they start to go haywire. I ran a scenario in my head of what I would do it that pipe burst.

It's also been a lot nicer at work now that Uffish works there too. Occasionally I'll look over and she'll make a face at me, which is a nice reminder that I take my job too seriously. Just today as I was leaving work I gave her a nice big goose. I suppose I should have waited until I clocked out, but I don't think anyone will sue. Another girl who works there asked me the other day when my last day was, so I told her it was on Wednesday. "Oh sad", she said, and I'm starting to agree with her. As much as I sometimes hate it, I think I'm actually going to miss my job, because the fact is, I've gotten to be pretty darn good at it. But I won't miss working Saturdays, coming home tired and spent and weeping, or smelling like restaurant, so I think it's for the best that I leave. Besides - there's a custodial job I've been sorely neglecting, and piles of trash and vomit calling my name, ever so softly.