I just figured out a major, major pet peeve of mine.

Mascots.

There's something about the way mascots are designed that just makes my skin crawl. The beefy muscles, the small waist, and everything usually tucked into basketball shorts or jeans or something. Have you seen Smokey the Bear lately? He's KILLING me. He's morphed into some sort of angry Uncle Sam/Top Gun Volleyball Scene hybrid that I find disturbing.

And then there's the way they act when doing their mascotly duties--fist pumping, gesturing, urging the crowd to "make some noise" but doing it like he'll freaking kill you if you don't. You know what I mean:

That pooch just seems like a bad dude. Not good bad, you know, BAD bad.

Apparently the Jazz Bear is quite famous, as far as mascots go. Awesome. Way to go, Utah. As if we don't have enough explaining to do, let's add the antics of a crazyangry bear to the list.

What? I'm adorable!

I know what you're thinking. Where is this coming from? I thought the same thing when my hate for these things filled me so quickly today. And I realized where it's coming from.

High school.
Doesn't it all start there?

Davis High is many things, but revered for its mascot is not one of them. Memorable, yes. Being taken seriously as a competitive threat? Not so much. I mean, we're no Beet Diggers or Farmers or any of these  but...we're darts. Darts are small. They're inanimate objects, which probably violates the first rule of mascot selection.

I feel I'm headed for some serious Dart-lover backlash, so I'll hopefully avoid that by saying I loved my high school. I didn't mind being a dart, and I don't even mind the colors. Like I've always said to anyone who tries to poke fun, "...it grows on you." Brown and gold forever!

However, there was something truly embarrassing about mascothood at Davis: Dartman. I would hate for him to read this because I really don't mean it as a slight against him. It wasn't his fault! Our school's lack of funding, energy, desire, pity or whatever for our mascot left him without a real costume--you know, the cartoon-ized, puffy types shown above. Instead he just dressed sort of like a gladiator. From K-Mart. I imagine it's hard work to inspire a crowd when you just have some spandex and a cape on.

And then there was Dartwoman.
All I will say about that is this: In the litany of women's liberation milestones, let the brief existence of Dartwoman stand as a shining example of the female struggle. Sufferage, Roe v. Wade, blah blah, Dartwoman.

But my real issue with the Davis mascot was a much more personal encounter. I was part of this, ahem, team of sorts. We helped with school spirit, you might say. Well, one day our coach decided that we needed to join forces with Dartman. I'm not sure why she felt we'd be some sort of unstoppable means of sideline distraction, but our "joining forces" meant two things: We had to hang out with Dartman; and I, specifically, had to do stunts with Dartman. Alone. That's what I got for being small.

As if parading around in a tiny skirt and yelling stuff (adorably) at people isn't enough humiliation, just picture yours truly perched precariously atop an untrained gladiator's shaky arms. He was a one-man show and that was working fine for everyone until I entered the scene and awkwardly fulfilled my co-mascot duty.

Nothing personal, Dartman. I just think there are more convincing duos than the two of us. Perhaps Dartman lifting Dartwoman overhead would have been nice. Or you in a real costume and me with a disguise. The possibilities are endless.

Anyway, bygones. That was 10 years ago. I'm totally over it.
But I still kinda wish we were the Davis Raptors. I could really get into that.

Stoufapalooza 2010

Just when I thought I had nothing to live for, April 27th came along and showed me what wonderful things lie in store for me at age 28.

It turns out that I need people. A lot. If it weren't for really nice, fun, charitable people, I would never enjoy anything ever. This birthday was no different. My 2 buddies, Spencer and Aaron, accompanied me to Six Flags after everybody else bailed. Well, not bailed, but claimed they had jobs and responsibilities and stuff. Anyway, these boys are blissfully unencumbered by silly things like employment, so we set off after a breakfast of waffles to meet our fate on the X2.

If you don't know the X2, I urge you to remedy that. It's the most amazing roller coaster I've ever Xperienced. It's Xtremely scary and awesome and makes you scream Xactly like a little girl. We walked right on and then proceeded to ride it 5 TIMES! 5 times is about 3 times too many, but we had to do it because we could. On my last ride I was on the front row with another lonely rider who was celebrating his birthday, all the way from Canada. We high-fived a lot and yelled stuff like "birthdays!"

Oh, Rhianna, hey...um, you should leave your doo-rag 

in the bins provided before you get on the ride.

Then I had to take a breather.


Then we went to a ride called Tatsu, which is freaking amazing. You are laying on your stomach, in Superman position the whole time. We decided to act like kitties because that's what we looked like.

It's alarming how much I've googled kitten pictures for this blog.

So the way you do that is to paw the air like you're climbing the whole time the rollercoaster is climbing. We did this, and the view of these boys clawing and clawing in my peripheral vision was too much and I lost it. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time. Or drooled that much. Poor, poor people below us.

Anyway, we rode that one 3 times. An empty amusement park is an amazing place, my friends.

Then it was lunchtime, and we all got giant turkey legs so we could look like barbarians. The thought of it repulses me now, but that was some good eats. 

     

Then we rode more and more and more roller coasters. Then we took booth pictures. Then we got me a commemorative pin for my birthday, and everyone signed it. Then I got a pink superwoman cape. 

Then we drove home. No traffic! No problems the whole day, except my very apparent old age that makes rollercoastering quite quite difficult on the body. Specifically the brain.

Then I had some amazing birthday messages on my phone. I love those.

Then I went 80s dancing! This was such a good part. I was exhausted and nobody was dancing so it was kind of awkward. I decided that was enough of that so I started dancing by myself in the middle of the club. This went on for a long time. Then I got my shy friends to join me, and then we went crazy. People just sat and watched. Then some drunk girls joined us, and one of them complimented my cape. I told her it was my birthday and she freaking freaked out. She made a sort of hula hoop with her arms and slid it over my entire body. She stopped about mid-thigh and then picked me up with the hula hoop arms and carried me around the room like that. I was mystified and a little worried about her level of gay, but it was flattering and exciting nonetheless. My friends got a big kick out of that part.

I danced for 1.5 hours straight and the music was incredibly awesome and then I had to stop because I was going to fall over from exhaustion. 

Which I did, once I got home.

Very, very good birthday. The brethren will never read this, but I love them and their willingness to treat me like a princess for a whole day. Always, actually. I'm a very lucky girl and always have been and I know it. I'm happy to be 28, even if my brain doesn't take to scrambling quite like it used to.

The end.

PSYCH!

Now it's the end.

Earthquakes 3-8, give or take

This is getting spooky.
As I was trying to fall asleep last night, I definitely felt shaking. And then again later. And then again this morning. I distinctly remember 4 different times that I felt something, but it was really subtle. It felt like those days in SoSaLa when Trax would go by and rattle my bed a bit. Apparently I've gotten used to this California occurrence, because all I did was make a mental note to check online in the morning to see where the epicenter was.

So I did.
And this is what I found.

If you're counting (and I am), that's 26 earthquakes just in the last 24 hours. Not atypical, and not all that alarming. But of those 26, 14 of them were in California!  !! I know, I know, I'm just looking at one day. But if that's anything like the normal pattern, I'm pretty freaked.

I know what you'll say next: These were tiny earthquakes. I know, and I still felt them. I really can't imagine one of those huge mothers that are happening all over the place. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm officially adding earthquakes to the growing list of Things I'm Wimpy About.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this.

Critters. 

I saw a possum running down the street by my house last night. My first instinct was to run and scream, which I did. I don’t know why, but I imagined it jumping with surprising agility and latching onto my face, like something out of a Chevy Chase movie. All in all, this and the earthquakes, combined with my frequent killer spider dreams are making nighttime pretty rough for me.

Yeah, you'd be afraid too.