It's a sickness, people.

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

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

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

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

You should watch this. Right now.

And if you have time, this one.

And this one.

We're going to Eugene!

No, not that Eugene, this Eugene.

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

Who FRTD?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

There's no business

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!