Tagged

Silly blog culture abounds as I find myself tagged. This means you get more useless information about me, but this time in convenient, numbered format!

I am to give you 6 facts about me and then tag 6 bloggers. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates will share his fortune with me if I follow through. That, or 66 thugs will slash my achilles tendons when I go out to my car some dark evening if I don't...and that kid with cancer won't get his heart transplant.



1--My guilty pleasure is Hilary Duff. Can't say I like her that much, but I'm so intrigued by her since the Lizzie McGuire days that I have to stop and watch whenever she appears. You can blame a lot on the pre-teen girls you babysit.

2--My impossible dream is to sing on Broadway.

3--I once attempted to try out for The Bachelor. I still wish for the opportunity to show up in front of Mr. Desperate in something with sleeves and with a personality and see how fast I get kicked off. You know the other girls would HATE me while they secretly wanted to be me. Modest is hottest!

4--I was meant to surf and play volleyball...I just came to the wrong climate. And body.

5--I have a super-human sense of smell. Cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon are my favorites.

6--I'm attracted to skinny guys. Nerdy ones, usually. Do you think this is just a reflection of my desire to be skinny? To pass skinny genes on to my kids? Do I enjoy being the bigger half? I'll never figure it out.



I tag..hmmm...do I even know 6 bloggers? Lohra, Shells, Kaydi, Shan D., Feline, and Natty.

Angels in the End Zone

It was half-time, or thereabouts.
I was getting slightly distracted—which isn’t all that surprising, considering I become bored quickly when I completely lack the talent necessary to be competitive. The score was 3-1. My team was winning, no thanks to me. I was doing a great deal of running around, however (because when you’re unable to catch a football you just keep busy by running around), so I’d already removed several layers of clothing. With just a thin pair of gloves on, I felt a new surge of energy, a desire to attempt contact with the ball. I made myself wide open—not difficult, considering most people had forgotten I was even there—and motioned to Laura to pass me the ball.

She fired; I missed. Slippery little bugger. We repeated this killer play three times before I decided to remember that I have no talent and begged everyone not to throw me the football ever again.
“Why wasn’t I born with athletic abilities?” I asked myself in agony. The wide, unfriendly sky gazed down on me as if to say, “Because you were given such an abundance of ugly face-making abilities.” Not the most comforting, though I agree that ugly faces can be useful. But why couldn’t I be like Laura, who caught numerous passes, scoring touchdowns and gaining rapport with fellow players? Or like Gretch, who pretty much tackled anything that moved?

I recommenced running around aimlessly, occasionally two-hand touching anybody I saw in case they might be involved in the game more than I was. When the captains declared that we wouldn’t call the game until one of the teams reached four points, I groaned audibly. “Can’t we just have a dance off?” I asked, in a pitiful attempt to gain some of my self-respect back. Alas, the game continued.

And then it happened.

My team had inched through the snow and ice toward the end zone—again, no thanks to me. We lined up for our fourth down, last-ditch attempt. I trucked it toward the end zone and found myself alone. I made eye contact with Oh Captain, My Captain, and I saw that mad gleam in his eye that could mean only one thing: He intended to pass it to me. Panic seized my body and I meant to scream, “NOOO! Throw it to anybody but me!” but shear terror pinched off my vocal chords and I just stared stupidly at that pointy, spiraling, missile of death coming at me as if it meant to seal my humiliation with a pigskin kiss…I think I closed my eyes…and awoke to find myself tackled by my teammates and a hundred screaming fans. I looked at my hands and was startled to see a football clutched therein.

How did this happen? Well, I’d like to bear my testimony of miracles. Happy, happy miracles. It’s not every day yours truly has the pleasure of making the game-winning touchdown.
Next time I’m shooting for MVP.

Blog Wars Revisited

My dear readers, be thou not distressed.

Some of you think I've died. I assure you, I have not. Others think I've become apathetic to the cause of blogging. Again, this is not so. And may I most vehemently protest those who think I've been cowed by the presence of other, clever-at-best, cocksure bloggers-To this group I simply ask, where is your faith? Is there not just reward for patience, for hope, for holding out indefinitely for that which you know is right and good?

I am here to tell you I have not given up on blogging. I will never let another blogger think they've won this war.

Rest your weary hearts and look forward with joy to the time when I shall post again. Twill be soon!

Belated Halloween Times

2007 brought me the best Halloween ever, I declare. Something I love about my friends is that they don't disappoint when it comes to dressing up. I used to go to the Howl at Utah State, only to see the creativity displayed (and to show off mine, on a good year). But I don't need to anymore, even if I wanted to, because our annual Halloween party is pretty much the awesomest.

Here are some examples (yes, that is Carly's pregnant belly. Her actual belly. Painted. I hope there wasn't lead in it). Please note: The more, uh..plain ladies are Warren Jeff's harem. I wish you could see McCall's shoes. They creep me out.





And as a bonus, I happen to work for a pretty freaking amazing company that also knows how to throw a killer party. Much creativity there, too, and this gave me the chance to do 2 costumes!

So, after much nagging, I proudly present my Halloween pictures.


That's me, sculpting a "TA" for Thomas Arts. I kind of won.



This one even creeps me out...maybe because of the bright blue of my bedroom. But this was right after my hair was freshly teased. It still hasn't recovered, unfortunately.



I stuck my hand in a tank with this in it. All in the hopes of grabbing a coupla bucks. All I got was a coupla pieces of paper and the chills for the rest of the day.
Hooray for Halloween!

No words

This picture makes me want to pee my pants laughing every time I look at it. Props to Shannon for sacrificing the Cute Factor for the sake of the Awesome Factor.
More Halloween stuff to come!

And the pedulum swings. I don't know how to spell pendulum

Yeah! What goes up must come down. And vice versa, apparantly.
The wallowing is over for now. That's the point of wallowing, you know, just to take some time out for girly feelings and then wake up and feel better. I should probably do another dating review because I actually have good things to report, but I'll wait until I have some sort of train wreck story because the entertainment value goes way up every time I strike out. You're welcome.

Tonight I feel like taking the pulse of America. How are you, everybody? How many of you read this? Are any of you boys? I sure hope not.
I have an actual question. Feel free to answer through comments or any more creative means you have at your disposal.

If you were to retire right now, what would you do with your time?
I think I would do the following: The numbers are jacked because I changed my mind a lot and I'm lazy.
1) Travel
1) Freelance graphic design
2) Flowers
3) Catering
4) Watch other people's babies. I know some of you are laughing at this right now, but I have a Favorite Aunt trophy to reclaim every year and it's getting dusty.
5) Make my own babies. Heh heh. Sorry, Mom, if you read this
7) Write THE book
8) Become a scriptorian. Scripturian? Centurion?
9) All those good Mormony things everybody seems to do, like refurbish furniture, sew drapes, can stuff, make pie (I don't even really like pie. I would make it so I could have those cinnamon sugar crusty pie crust things), make children, frame pictures and own a real set of sheets.
10) Racquetball. It's been way too long.

So there you go. Answer at will. Love you forever, hope you never die.

Wally the Walrus

I am wallowing.

I would do another dating review but I just don't have it in me tonight. I'm too busy trying to figure out what it is we learn by being shot down time and time and time again. Humility, yes. Patience, probably. Bowing out gracefully, perhaps. I think I could learn all of those things by, say, losing a tennis match. Or a political debate. What is it about love--that most personal of things you take personally--that must be learned almost entirely through pain?

"Life is pain, Highness. Anybody who tells you differently is selling something." Good glory--Is that true? Am I really supposed to believe the Dread Pirate Roberts?

Alas, don't fear. I'm not the most heartbroken I've been. Suffice it to say I've experienced far, far worse but I've also been 'experiencing' for far too long so I'm tired. Literally exhausted.

Depressing post, anyone? Enjoy!

P.S. Lohra's blog only confirms this one. Read it and weep.

Intro: I thought I was done writing papers...but I got this assignment at work. Please let me know what you think and if I can honestly present this to my co-workers.

Hypothesis: I believe that we are losing the ability to communicate face to face because technology (ie email, text messaging, chatting, etc) limits our ability to interpret, creates a delay in response, and creates a mask under which we operate differently than we would in person.

Email, chatting, and text messaging has taken the place of many necessary steps in communication in offices and relationships. Instead of printing, copying, delivering, and explaining documents, pictures and any other message, one can compose an email and attach anything needed. Announcements are made, invitations extended, and any sort of rantings and ravings are expressed through electronic means, which eliminates the need to form the typical thoughts and verbal responses necessary in actual conversation. As a result, one can remain up to speed on anything without seeing the people they’re emailing, sometimes never meeting them at all. Opinions are formed based solely on personal interpretations of somebody else’s writing, without the aid of facial expressions, tone, body language, and overall delivery of the message. This leaves room for misinterpretation and a tendency for everything to be colored by one’s own voice and bias. The ability to judge an audience and respond accordingly is damaged when the audience is not actually present.

In addition to removing the personal feel from conversation, technological advances have ‘helped’ our communication by giving us time to think. The delay involved in electronic communication is inevitable, no matter how fast it goes. We can take as much time as we need to think of a response and make it better—Whether better means more witty, less scathing, more scathing, better researched, well-worded, etc. While some may argue that this has helped communication, I argue that it has done so only on an electronic level and only serves to further eliminate emotion from messages—or add it to them, whichever the case may be—Emotion that otherwise would be a genuine part of our conversations. Take away the technology and regular talking may be difficult. No delete button on our speech may hurt us sometimes, but it also makes us more real. We need to develop the ability to censor/express ourselves as needed in daily conversation.

The mask of technology has much to do with the points expressed above. The delay, coupled with the knowledge that the person receiving the message can’t actually see you, creates an atmosphere of bravery that isn’t present in face-to-face conversation. This is best exhibited by teenage girls, who now have the guts to flirt shamelessly with boys they wouldn’t even dare look at, all because a text message removes them from the embarrassment of interfacing. Sadly, I am stuck in the unfortunate position of dating in this technological age without the benefit of claiming the immaturity of a teenager…so I am not immune to the technological mask, as much as I may wish for the days of good old fashioned conversation (stutters and red faces and all). The reason this emboldening of people through electronic means is dangerous is because, like it or not, at some point we will end up face to face (at least until we figure out how to have e-families and robot employees) and we will be reduced to bumbling idiots, clamoring for the nearest cell phone so we can say what we really feel.

Winter is coming: Who wants to be my electric blanket?

The long awaited dating review is here!

(Disclaimer: I will not be too specific on these descriptions because you never know who might be reading...I shudder to think that any boys might encounter this blog, because everybody knows BlogWorld belongs exclusively to girls.)

I consider my dating life smokin' if I have a date every week or two. That's been happening lately so I actually have some things to report, but sometimes I use the term 'date' rather loosely. Some would consider this a quota-filling, self-deluded way to think, but I just like being able to check "Romance" off on my master list, okay?

Date #1 — The Phantom Masseur: Having met this one on a recent vacation and receiving some unsolicited physical contact from him, I wasn't terribly surprised when he acquired my phone number from someone else and asked me out. Nor was I terribly excited, because I find it distracting when every time I look there's some creature staring at me like...I don't know what like, but not too much unlike an 8th grader looks at the worm they're about to dissect. Googly, yes. Friendly? Not sure.
Anyway, have you ever been in a situation where a person is desparately seeking your approval/attention/applause? I realize this sounds really cocky, but I'm just going to tell it like it is. He was saying things he thought were funny or talking in a weird voice and out of my peripheral vision I can see him watching to see if I laughed. And we all know I can't fake it.
Highlights: Turkey races
Candice and Dave and family
Getting home by 10:30
Lowlights: Worst Navajo taco ever
Remember that whole staring thing?
Getting home by 10:30 (means it was a bad date)
Wrap up: Nice guy, no chemistry, not connected enough to do anything other than avoid future phone calls. And I'm a really, really bad actress.

Date #2 -- The Set-up: A friend who never sets anybody up decided to set me up with a co-worker, mostly in exchange for his work on a project she needed complete. I don't think I've ever been peddled this way before, and it's sort of...awesome to be traded like some sort of goods or services. This one was an easy crowd--I didn't have to glance at him constantly to see if he was laughing because he rewarded my every quip with a hearty chuckle. Most people know how important it is for me to be rewarded that way, whether it's real or not. It helps that I was in a really good mood from work that day and sort of hyper...
Highlights: Dismantling the weird piece of marketing whatever on the restaurant table
and then complaining to the waiter that somebody ruined our centerpiece.
CD players and speakers in cars. Revolutionary.
YouTube
Lowlights: He thinks girls have nakey pillow fights.
Not the best burger ever
Again, home by 10:30
Wrap up: Even nicer guy; not creepy, and I really did have a good time. No chemistry, but I hope I didn't ruin any office relationships.

Date #3 -- The Unexpected: Somehow I tricked this one into a date when I invited him to a concert and he couldn't get off work in time...I think he felt really bad and took me to dinner to ease his conscience. Little did he know he would have the time of his life! BAM!! This guy is tricky because I think he's genuinely just nice but everything he does looks a lot like wooing me. And I'm very woo-able in this case. Every time I talk to him I just think he's so cool and that's the only way to describe it. I'm working on working it.
Highlights: Chivalry lives
Surprises galore, ie follow-up texts, etc.
Air guitar
Lowlights: Restaurants close early
Missed concert
Accidently comparing your date to a balding George McFly
Wrap up: I had to think really hard to find lowlights. We'll see where this goes...

Well, I hope you enjoyed my review. Please continue your prayers that I will get dates so we can continue this tradition.

To work is to live

Sometimes I feel like this.

It's been a crazy ride these last couple of weeks. I suffer from manic something, I'm sure, because my mood/personality/outlook on life shifts dramatically every 5 minutes lately. As mentioned to friends, I'm hoping the worst of that ailment is attributable to several things, namely a) New, scary job; b) Lack of sleep; c) Hormonal imbalances; d) Lack of social excitement (AKA I need a boy, dangit!); e) Pining over the loss of school..and my childhood. Thus, I think it only temporary. Patience, grasshopper.

Anyway...The job is good. I like it here and lately have actually been able to eat and, um, breathe a little bit. Still not sure this is quite what I want but since what I want doesn't exist I'm willing to give it a try. I could do without certain people telling me to pick up and move to Manhattan while I'm young and single, though--I don't need confirmation of the evil, anti-practical voices in my head.

So that's my update. Not the most scintillating post yet, and for that I apologize. Stay tuned for a dating review...I think that could be funny.

Don't drink the Gatorade

Ah. The trip of the summer.

Last weekend I, with 16 of my closest friends, drove 10 hours and hiked 10 miles into this beautiful desert oasis in Supai, AZ. It was so super duper fun, really. And super duper hard on my feeble body. So it's a pretty short trip for such sore muscles, but totally worth it.

Havasupai means "people of the blue-green water" or something, which is a really good description. Well, of the water, I guess. I didn't have much to do with the people. As you can see, the water is beautiful, crystally blue-green and, as Becky's gangrenous left foot will testify, looks deceptively clean and pure. I likened it to blue Gatorade Rain, liberally laced with staph bacteria. Mmmm. Pleasant.

Some highlights:
--Swimming behind Havasu Falls (pic above) and jumping through the raging water
--Navajo Falls. That's all I can say.
--My feet done up in full armor from Camp Counselor Katherine's first aid kit
--The Love Train. If you don't know I'm not telling you.
--Mule carcasses
--Climbing up Beaver Falls with a million other people...like so many zombies
--Loaded Baked instant mashed potatoes
--40-foot cliff jumping. And enemas.
--Laura threatening to kick that girl over the cliff.
--Unsolicited massages
--The look those hard core hikers gave me when they saw me trucking up the trail in nothing but an orange polka-dotted swimsuit and hiking boots. While sweating my brains out. And singing Les Mis. I think I'll run for Miss Havasupai 07.

I need to do a nice summer re-cap blog. I've done much this summer and I think maybe this is my year. Since I seem to be doing most of my living in the short 3-month summer span, I guess my life is over now that it's September.
Actually, September is my favorite month. Hooray!



Here are some more pics for the fans. It was amazing and we had a great group. I am very grateful for good friends and good husbands of those friends. If polygamy comes back I think I'll be set. That statement is not to be taken as lusting after husbands--Think of it more as appreciating chivalry.

But a half-life?

I have several things on my mind today. Where to begin?
Well, the obvious place to start would be to say that today is my last day here at the conglomeration of half-companies I've been working for. Phew. I can stop looking over my shoulder at the men in trench coats who've been constantly underfoot....looking at my mail...wondering why I drive such a nice, shiny car.

Which brings me to my next topic: Dance. I love to dance (name that flick). Last night marked the end of So You Think You Can Dance and thus, the end of my life in The Know. You see, this is the only TV show I watch and it makes me feel slightly part of something. I have no desire to watch anything else (that episode of King of Queens Laura and I caught the other night was, um, dirty) and as a result of my zealous following of it this season, I have no desire to do anything except dance anymore.

What I don't understand is why I never feel free to go live some crazy dream. I mean, my friend Rachel moved to Seattle to make it as a dancer, and rather than the cliched scene playing out—you know, the one where she gets taken advantage of by some pimp-like manager and becomes heavily involved in drugs, sex, booze, and the deceiving lure of fame and has to reach rock bottom before she realizes who she is and starts to rebuild her life and climb to the top the right way ( I said I don't watch TV...That says nothing about abstaining from movies)—In her case, it's actually working. She dances, waits tables, and yeah. That's it. Awesome.

If anyone can tell me why I don't do the same things, please enlighten me. I don't even have a 401K. Or kids. I should be free. And if somebody comments that you need talent to do those things, I'll punch you in the face. What I lack in talent I make up for in style, and you know it. (Again, name that flick. HINT: It's the same flick! YES!). Besides, dancing is merely one of my million fits of passion.

Okay, I digress. Actually, this whole thing is one big digress. Maybe that's how I feel about these dreams I have—Pursuing them seems like digressing from life, not real life itself. Maybe to really achieve something you fantasize about you have to stop fantasizing about it and actually commit to it indefinitely. So what is real life then, if not what you dream about? Is it 40 hours a week in an office? Is it long periods of drought interspersed with quick, intense relationships? Is it singles wards? Is it balancing budgets, cleaning houses and daydreaming about singing in a band? I'm not so sure it is. Maybe once I figure that out I can finally be content with what I've chosen. In The Truman Show they call it the Superman complex—Thinking you're somehow special and made for something bigger than the mundane, higher than the dregs of life. I wonder if I'll ever stop feeling that way.

If I were to write a book, would you buy it? Maybe if I got enough people to promise me they'd buy it before I even write it I'd have the motivation I need. I could write enough blogs, emails, poems, and journal entries to fill a novel but once it has to have a beginning and an end and a meaning and it has to move people, I chicken out. Moving me doesn't count...at least not to publishers. I think there are probably 5 of you reading this at some point. Illustrating perfectly my point—I write for me mostly but others secretly more. But to actually print something with the intent that others read it—And pay to read it!—is like coming right out and declaring "I have something important to say and I want you to know and I want you to like it and you'll break my heart if you don't." Imagine giving birth to something you love—something you don't have to explain yourself to, something that represents everything you go through, everything you feel and want and fear, and you hand it over to somebody or millions of somebodies and you ask them to love it too. I can't stand the thought that they won't. The first critic who slams it would be the first to silence my voice and stop me from producing anything else for people to kill.

And there it is. The reason I don't do the things I love.

I kind of apologize if you've read this far and are now depressed. I'm also pretty curious if anybody feels this way sometimes.

Extreme Life Makeover...Me edition

Ah, the winds of change...
As many have heard, I've been making some decisions lately—The biggest one being a change of employ. I have accepted a position at Thomas Arts, an advertising company owned by a good family friend in Farmington.
Yes, I'm from Farmington.
No, I will not be moving to Farmington.
Sorry to all my Davis County fans. For now I'm staying in Salt Lake because, well, perhaps I'm hoping that out here I can at least pretend that I'm not a slave to the 9-5 by hanging out with all my hip friends at hip urban places. Or something. And I actually really love paying rent for a basement room full of Hobo spiders, equipped with what I recently learned is a window so small you can't legally call it a bedroom. I-15 Northbound, here I come.
I am actually really excited. And scared. Fake it til you make it, right?
I am actually really sad too. I won't be going to school this fall, which is seriously going to put a damper on the Art Night tradition we were just starting. School is another way in which I pretend I'm not a slave to the 9-5. Maybe I'll start again some other time; Maybe not. Maybe one degree is enough...We'll see.
So here's to me trying to grow up!
For an example of the mature woman I hope I'm becoming, I always look to my mother.

Correction

That post with my design examples? Freaky colors!
For a few days I had to work on a different monitor that inverted all my colors. I thought it only affected the way I viewed things but apparantly it sticks sometimes. So for the record, the dog ad is not supposed to be all freaky blue. Nor are the graphics on the t-shirt. Those are actually all different shades of green. Maybe someday I'll post the real things. Then again, maybe it's not that important.

The Tale of the Basement Beast

Once upon a time it was late at night and I was tired. I rose wearily to close my door before going to bed and caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Prone to hallucination, I knew it was probably nothing, but I ventured a half-glance in that general direction and saw...nothing. I would have just gone to bed but suddenly my skin was crawling and an unmistakable crittery feeling came over me, so I investigated further. I pulled a box away from the wall and there she was: A very large spider. I shall call her Big Bertha. BB froze. I froze. A tumbleweed rolled lazily by. It was a standoff—Both parties contemplating the next move. I had an important decision to make and I had to make it fast, because as every spider hater knows, the only thing worse than the thing actually crawling on you is for it to disappear....for what we can't see is what we fear most, no? And as previously mentioned, the movement I saw was a 'flash' so I knew how fast the sucker could move. The situation obviously called for a certain, swift death. At this point, please allow a flashback (I want you to grasp the full scope of my imagination and the gravity it lends to the battle at hand.)
In junior high, my friend Candice and her sister Jessica underwent a similar battle with a beast in their basement. Jessica mustered up the courage to smash it with a shoe but left the shoe there and ran away. But when they went back and lifted up the shoe...BABIES went running out everywhere! Babies spilling out everywhere...I still have nightmares, and I wasn't even there.

So you can understand my hesitation at just going all warrior-crazy with a big boot or something. Thankfully, at the moment when I needed it most, I remembered a time-honored method first taught to me by another fem fatale friend, Val: Hairspray. Immobilizing my enemy seemed the only solution.

I raced upstairs to my hairstylist-friend's room (man, I have a lot of helpful friends!) to seize the aerosol hairspray and raced back downstairs, thankful that BB hadn't budged. Armed with a shoe in one hand and the deadly toxin in the other, I attacked. BB panicked and started running toward me, quick as lightning...But slowly she, well, slowed down until she was stuck, mid-scamper. Whereupon I bopped her with my shoe--not even hard enough to dislodge the babies she allegedly carried on her back. A perfect, Bertha-shaped splat remained on the sole of my shoe, with the length of her leg span as my only proof of her full size. The end.

Or so I thought. Battle with a new Bertha commenced last night. This one was not so quick to slow down (maybe I was cocky about my hairspray skills) and she ran under my bed, so I had to sleep on the couch upstairs. I smell a phone call to the exterminator. Sometimes you have to call in the general when the mere foot soldier exhausts her strength.

Same-day service

Hello again. Now, don't go thinking this posting every day thing is going to be a dirty habit--I think mainly things are painfully slow at work so I find my mind wandering to other things...Other-blogly things.

So I thought I'd give a little demo on what I do here at Valley Lifestyles, Inc. Those rumors about me working at a health club or being a religious goods store clerk stop today! Here are a few samples of my killer 'design' work. I'm hoping the talent scouts are watching, because this is going to blow them away!

Eh? Whattaya think? I have a future in advertising, no?

Actually, it's really funny what I spend my time doing. Yellow Page ads, money mailers, the occasional business card. Movin' on up...

And for fun, I'm posting a pic of my niece Kara that I think showcases both her personality and my ability to recognize the talent for making awesome faces in just about anyone.

What the blog?

Whoa, check it.

Here I am in the blogosphere, not even sure it's anything like the place I keep hearing about. What the spell check? Turns out blogosphere isn't really a word. So I will nickname it BlogTowne instead. I am the mayor of Blogtowne and my minions dance on command. Wondering who my minions are? Dear reader, if you don't know then I'm not going to tell you.

So welcome. This blog is the culmination of a lot of dreaming and scheming to get my inner thoughts out in the open (I'm usually very secretive but it's a lonely, lonely road) and to share them with you, my adoring fans. In Blogtowne everybody wins--You get to hear what's going on with me and I get to not hear what's going on with you unless I specifically ask for it. Hooray!

I will post a bonus pic of me so y'all can start ripping me off for modeling jobs.

Wait. I don't know how to do that. Stay tuned and I'll learn the internet!