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.