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.