Wednesdays, and Another Commitment

I think we can all agree that the week would be better if we could skip Wednesdays. They're just awful. It's the day that your exhaustion with the week becomes unbearable, but it's still too far from the weekend for you to be able to rejoice.

Yep. That’s exactly how it feels. My Wednesdays are particularly awful because they are basically Mondays (woof) without the joy of Fridays (Yay!), with the addition of two once-a-week classes, one of which is a 2.5 hour evening class, which means I’m on campus from 10-1 and then again from 3-7:30 (but sometimes as early as 7, though I wasn’t so lucky today). On Mondays and Fridays, it’s usually 10-11, and 3-4. you can see that there is a big difference there. Plus the fact that I leave for class before 3 means I don’t really have a good time for dinner, unless I eat on campus. Let me just stop that little brain fart right there—that is never going to happen. At least, not often. (Oh, that I were a freshman, and could have the wish of my heart: to again carry the magic money card!)
As if that weren’t bad enough, today was made worse by the impending ID Midterm in my Music 202 class, which meant that I was spending every spare moment drilling Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Handel, and Mozart in my head. Not fun. Because afterwards, all you have in your head is a bajillion little violins and sopranos singing “And suddenly! There were with the angel! A multitude of the heavenly host! Praising God! And singing! …“ and then it goes into the “Glory to God” section of the Messiah, blah blah blah you get my point. It’s all fine and dandy here and there, but the constant pounding is really doing wonders for the state of my head right now. And, to make things worse, there were about 4 questions on the test that I just guessed on, or was stupid enough to think I could go back to later (couldn’t – it was a timed, PPT test with only 2 questions per slide, and those two questions being composer and title (or genre) of the work.) Then there’s the weather, and the fact that the past few days of sunny sunshine and happiness are about to be obliterated with winds, cool temperatures, and the very stuff of nightmares—snow. Oh, and I’m sick. And I have to go to French tomorrow. And I had to listen to another lecture about stinking North Korea, because, as he is popularly known, the Larry Miller of BYU campus is a whore who is prostituting the Kennedy Center Lecture Series by focusing on as many Asian topics as possible to help his little minions/slaves/b’s. (Not to be disrespectful of the Real Larry Miller, of course.) I think you’ve got the idea – Wednesday has been a Wednesday, and a particularly bad one.
I can’t wait for next semester when I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-6:30. That is SO heinously bearable I can’t stand it. Four day weekends always? I’m all over that.
Now on to my second topic. I had almost forgot about it, but then I looked at my title again. Hah. Well here’s the thing: I stalked somebody again. Blog stalked them indirectly, actually. And, once again, I find myself needing to commit to not stalking people anymore. I can’t do it. There’s too much creepy there. Creepy what I’m doing, creepy what I’m finding, and makes everyone involved, stalker AND stalkee, seem like more of a creeper than any of us actually are. Today, I take a solemn vow: no more stalking. I’m super done with it. Super, super, super done.

Reflections on Valentine's Day

Yesterday may have been the best Valentine's Day of my life, to date. And just to answer your questions, yes, I'm as pathetically single as I've always been; and yes, I've always been pathetically single, at least always on Valentine's Day. So, if I've always been single and I'm still single, what on earth was I doing, rejoicing in a day that many people in my condition (pathetic single-ness) bitterly refer to as "Singles Awareness Day"?

Let me tell you.

I should probably first confess that I have not always been a fan of Valentine's Day. I was always annoyed with the gross couples in high school who always wanted to have their hands all over each other, and then shelled out $40+ for some huge, hideous stuffed animal that their significant other would have to drag around school all day, stare goopily at in every class, and take up everyone else's space with. And that was just the stuffed animal. There was usually also a few enormous boxes of chocolate, and heinous numbers of balloons that obstructed vision, and tended to pop when they hit the lights. (I'm very afraid of popping balloons.) Of course, it didn't help that I'm Mormon and therefore forbidden to date, and that I also had a propensity for balking in the face of PDA that I was expected to participate in, and also tended to reject anyone who tried to date me. Not like that was a huge number of people, but ya know, it happened from time to time. I have also been known to say that I don't like the idea of people waiting for holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries to celebrate love, because shouldn't it be celebrated all year? (Now I see my own logical fallacy: ex. I love Christmas, but we sure as heck don't treat any other day of the year like Christmas.)

However, my attitude about it has completely changed. And for the better, I'm sure. No, I'm not dating anyone. No, I'm not "almost dating" anyone. No, I don't see this changing any time in the near future. BUT I do see it happening some time in the future, and I think that that is something worth looking forward to.

On Facebook, I saw a lot of people posting statuses about hating Valentine's Day, referring to it as "Singles Awareness Day," and even someone who wore all black and then went to an Anti-Valentine's Day party. And that's okay; if it makes you happy to sneer at a holiday dedicated to love, so be it. Good for you. Do what makes you happy. Those just aren't the things that make me happy.

I would hate to think that I shouldn't be able to enjoy Valentine's Day until I am happily dating or married to someone. I would hate even more to think that I should be miserable on such a day because of my relationship status. Could I feel better about myself by being irritated at and speaking out against all the people who are, bless their hearts, so happily situated? I mean, I would hate to burst any bubbles here, but that just doesn't work. There's no happiness in trying to devalue someone else's happiness.

Instead, I'd like to make a suggestion, and that is this: Valentine's Day isn't necessarily about celebrating relationships, it's about celebrating love. It's about celebrating the fact that I love my family, that I love my roommates, that I love Girl Scout Samoas cookies (and Samoas ice cream!); that I love books, and sunshine, and flip flops, and green grass, and friendship, and good food, and swimming pools, and chick-flicks. It's about celebrating the fact that love is possible. Maybe I'm not dating somebody right now, but is that any reason to ignore everything else that I love, and not be excited for when love does come along? I know I'm risking sounding like the BYU stereotypical marriage-rabid coed, but I'm pretty sure I'm right here. (And I'm not marriage-rabid, thank you very much.)

Why not listen to love songs? Why not have happy little hearts everywhere? Why not be happy about life and love and everything that is awesome? Because I'm bitter about not being in a relationship? I'm sorry, but how petty and shortsighted is that!

It's like being miserable at your birthday party because you're not allowed to eat your cake yet. Well sorry, people. It's my party, and I will be freaking happy if I want to. :)

The Diet of a College Student

Here in K1, we pride ourselves on the quality of our meals. We stand proud behind our beautifully displayed pasta bar. We rejoice in our massive exhibition of cupcakes and dipped cocoa spoons. We will ravish your taste buds with our calzones, spaghetti sauces, pizzas, meatballs, and Chinese Buffet Doughnuts. On any given evening, without occasion, we, unlike most college students, will whip up a full blown and incredibly delicious meal. It's a beautiful thing…
… most of the time.
Now, I guess it's not fair to implicate my roommates in this. It's mostly me. I'm really the one to blame here. Why? I'm not really sure. If I had to guess, I'd probably say it's because I either want to go all out, or I just quit. It's kind of like me with cleaning. If I can't do a full-blown spring-cleaning kind of deal, I will probably just ... not. You’d think I’d just get over it and make a quasi-real meal. No. I just go straight down the path of crazy. Here is a list of some of the bad food choices I've made this year:
5. Things Straight Out of the Can
Be it the pineapple tidbits I just finished, the cherry pie filling that left me full of sick, or the jellied cranberry sauce that’s on my list of “never purchase ever again,” I’m semi-notorious for eating stuff out of the can. Idk what’s wrong with it. It saves me from having to do dishes. But it’s not always (read: ever) meant to be eaten that way, so it tends to taste pretty shady. And yet I keep doing it … huh.
4. 7-Up … on Frosted Mini-Spooners

  ⁺⁼

One sunny Saturday morning, I woke up excited for breakfast. As I was about to pour myself bowl of Frosted Mini Spooners (remember, this was back at the beginning of fall semester when I was relishing every moment I had with cereal that didn’t taste like horse feed after a summer of Kashi and Chex. Woof.), I spotted a 2-liter of 7-Up sitting on the counter, and thought, in the middle of my morning intellectual fog, “Soda sweet. Cereal sweet. Sweet plus sweet equal very sweet. Good, yes?” Reason caught up with me for a moment, and said, “Are you serious?” A few seconds passed, and I was unsure of what I would do. Then I said to myself, “I’m in college. I DO WHAT I WANT.” Fortunately, I had enough foresight to only put seven or so Frosted Mini Spooners in my bowl, and only a quarter of a cup of soda in my bowl. Strangely enough, it tasted just like Fruit Loops at first. Then that 7-Up-y tang and carbonated fierceness that Sprite could never harness threw me into a tailspin. Rude.
3. My New Year’s Eve Feast: Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, a raspberry peach fruit juice, and peanut butter … I don’t even know what else.
++ +  +  =
Being that I had just flown back home from Christmas break that day, and had spent like 14 hours travelling, it was perfectly acceptable that I didn’t want to go out and party on New Year’s Eve. I’ve never really cared much about the New Year, except how it destroys my erasers because I am constantly having to rewrite the date. I don’t make resolutions, because hey, who wants to be hugely disappointed in themselves come February (or January 5th, as the case may be …) when they realize that they’ve completely failed as a human being, and can’t even successfully give up carbonated beverages for a month (5 days …). Not like I’ve ever tried that, because I have a full-blown addiction to carbonated things, and I would never give them up because I see no reason to, as I have limited access to them.
So as I’m lying on the couch, I realize that I’ve got no groceries, but also that I don’t want to cook, and I’m capital-H Hungry. I’m too lazy to walk to the market (slash forget that it exists), and so I start scavenging the cabinets for things that are edible. What I find are Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, some raspberry peach flavor packets, and peanut butter. I might have found a few other things, but I know that those things were definitely there. I collect my items, ashamed of myself, and shut the blinds tight, lock and bolt the front door, fluff the cozy sack, and find pillows, blankets, and my cellphone, and plop down in front of the TV to watch Oceans 11.
But it doesn’t stop here. I know, it already seems bad enough that I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone in my apartment, eating these things, wrapped up in my little cocoon of loser-dom. Oh no. I had to get creative. I’m mixing up my peanut butter and pudding, I’m sloshing juice into my mouth before I can even swallow the cracker (which is, surprisingly enough, not that bad …).
I don’t really remember what else went down in my fit of insanity and sick hunger, but I am not proud. Not proud at all.
2. Straight Sea Salt

I’m one of those people that really likes salt. I like salty popcorn, salty caramel … all sorts of salty things. Now, our apartment has a spice rack, a really cute one, on which there is a bottle that holds (you guessed it) sea salt. And it’s the cool stuff that is in pretty sizeable chunks too. It’s great stuff.
So let’s set the stage for this a little bit. We’ve invited some of the gentlemen from #6 over to watch a movie and make homemade caramel, and we’re having a lovely time with them and a few other people that we didn’t really know. As Logan is stirring up the caramel, I’m chilling in the kitchen and I see this little jar of sea salt. So I start pouring tiny piles into my hand and eating the little pebbles of sea salt. Nbd, right? Well, as I'm going along, my throat kinda starts to burn, but it’s a cold, wet burn (yes, all three of those can be happening at the same time). It was weird, but I didn’t really think anything of it, and I kept eating the sea salt.
Suddenly, I realize that I’m going to barf. What do I do? I walk past everyone straight to the bathroom, kneel down in front of the toilet, and proceed to offer up my oblations to the porcelain god. Then Natalie came in and I was barfing and my face was covered in tears, because even if you’re not distressed, vomiting is one of those things that makes all the liquids in your face start coming out, whether you will it or not. That’s just reality.
1. Campells Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits Soup … on Rice

 ^{+  =}

This was probably the worst possible thing I ever did. Let’s just clarify that shopping hungry isn’t only bad because you want to buy things you don’t need. It’s also bad because suddenly, things that should never, ever look good suddenly look delicious. It’s a good thing we’re not supposed to shop on Sunday, because if I went grocery shopping on Fast Sunday, I’d probably come home with a jar of pickled eggs or pigs’ feet or something. Granted, I was further deceived by the $1 price tag. A meal for $1? I’m on that like white on rice.
Which is funny, because rice is where things start getting really shady… Well, shadier than they already were.
So I make this soup, and realize that it’s not what it was pretending to be. The thing about canned soup is that it looks like there might be some variation in there, but they let it sit in the cans for like a billion years before they try to sell it to the public, and by that point everything has just decided to share flavors and textures, so it’s mostly just this homogenous slop that’s also probably carrying botulism. I realize this, and suddenly also realize, thanks to the stank … I mean steam rising out of the pot it was brewing in, that this soup is very dense with “flavor.” Knowing that my taste buds couldn’t take that kind of intensity, I knew that I had to find some way to stretch the flavor out and dilute it. I was afraid to put water in it, because that would make it grosser. Then I remembered that I had a Tupperware of rice in the fridge from some previous meal. I think to myself, “Soup on rice? It’s kind of like a sauce thing on rice, right?”
WRONG. It was like my mouth was Hiroshima and my own stupidity dropped a starch bomb on me, decimating all hope of happiness for the rest of the night. I was full within like 3 bites, the smell of the Cheese-Whiz-y cheddar “flavor” in the soup was giving me a headache, and I think they used hog tongues to make those bacon bits. So … awful … ughhhhh.

The Lost Chicken

DISCLAIMER: I know this is gonna look like I really care, but I don't. I mean, a little bit, but not enough to make a real issue out of it.

So I haven't eaten very much meat lately. I can't really explain how I've been getting away with this. Dinner group, of course, has played a part, but I don't really know how else I've managed to do this. I can't even think of what I've been eating the past few days. All I know is that I haven't touched my chicken (the only meat I have) since before Josh's birthday. I am absolutely, 100% certain of this.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I came home after a very long day and, having decided to make chicken alfredo pasta, found that I didn't actually have any chicken.

Now, I know I had some before Josh's birthday, because last time I used it (whenever that was) I hadn't used my last piece. I hadn't even used my second to last piece. I'm pretty sure I had like four pieces of chicken left, actually. Maybe three. Idk. But when I got in the freezer to get my chicken so I could cook it up for my pasta, my chicken was gone. The entire bag had disappeared.

Let's just get something straight: I don't mind people using my food. Within reason, of course. I mean, I'm not going to let someone starve when I have food, but it's just not fair to expect other people to provide food you, and I'm not the kind of person that's super okay with getting mooched off like that.

Where I'm having a problem (and it's really not a problem. Not this time anyways. Mostly just funny.) is with the fact that somebody used up the last of my chicken and didn't even tell me. I mean, seriously? What, are they like so ashamed that they used the last of my chicken that they couldn't even inform me?

And like I said, it's not a big deal. At this point I just think it's kinda funny.

Yeah. Let's just leave it at that.

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

One of "Those" ...

I think we've lost our articulateness, as a society. I was just thinking about how this week has been one of "those" weeks, and how somehow that has become an all-encompassing word to mean anything from "the most awful, dreadful, nightmarish 7-day period of my life" to "nothing happened that merits the effort of speech."

With what audacity do we dare sum up 168 God-given hours in such a pathetic, ambiguous word? Especially one that is usually attended with a negative connotation?

It's hard to say why we choose to do this. Do we think other people don't care about our lives? Do we not care about our lives? Are we afraid that they will be annoyed or bored with the things we have to say? Do we have anything to say? Or do we simply not know how to say it?

I can't help but think right now of Taylor Mali's slam poem "Totally like whatever, you know?" Watch it. It's awesome. :)

Are we so uncertain about the value of the things we have to say, do we have so little emotion invested in the things that happen to us, that we simply cannot articulate our own lives?

And isn't that something that's kind of important? Shouldn't we be able to talk about our lives, about the things we think, and about the things that are important to us?

Where things really get confusing for me is how we simultaneously have people who will post on Facebook every single thing they do and every single thing they feel. "SOOOOOO annoyed :(((((((((((" or "Bobbie Butthead is at Chile's right now. Chicken Enchilada Soup. YUMMMM." (I recognize that I'm being really immature by including the word "butthead" in my blogpost, but at this point I just don't even care. Judge me at your will and pleasure.)

Do we simply have no idea what is worth documenting and discussing? Or are we just afraid to talk about the things that actually ARE worth documenting and discussing because we don't want people to argue with us and judge us? Do we just not develop our opinions deep enough to have understanding sufficient TO argue them?

Are we so afraid of sounding stupid that we aren't willing to take the chance of sounding smart?

Language. Mmm :)

Hip-nap-sters

I woke up this morning in a sweat, hoping that I could turn off the alarm fast enough that my brain would jump back into my dream, so that I'd be able to finally see what was on the screen and finally understand what I'd been dragged through in the past few hours of sleep.

It all started in a red house with a clean, new cement driveway and lawn of crisp, green grass and forest growing up in the backyard. The driveway came up to the side of the house to a garage, so positioned to be invisible from the street. Inside that garage, there was some old farm equipment, so that, from the inside, the garage actually seemed more like a barn with a cement floor. On the back wall of the garage, tall planks of wood had separated, letting in long crevices of light, which were joined with spots that had come through empty knots in the planks. I was standing in this garage, reading a long message that had been spray painted on the floor. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it had something of the look of a logo, but with far too many words for a logo. In my mind, I knew who had done this, and I was annoyed. There were people with me, and we were talking about the paint on the floor, calling the artists dirt bags (and d-bags) and laughing annoyedly about it.

Suddenly, the garage was opened and a large group of people came in. They were gloriously dressed in their best ironically chic vintage hipster clothing, and they had come to take us. There were probably fifty of them, and only 3-5 of us (though, of course, I don't really remember much about them), and they were kidnapping us. We were packed into a long line of cars and we were headed to St. George. I protested, knowing that I was supposed to sing at the funeral of a stranger. I was tempted to lie to those who had kidnapped me, to tell them that it was my grandma's funeral, and how dare they keep me from going to my grandma's funeral. I was appalled. Once we arrived in St. George, we entered a large house. It was kind of like there was a house party going on, and I was being dragged around by the lead female hipster who was going to tell me all about her adopted "cause," her raison d'etre, the passion of her life, after which I was going to have to listen to every other cause adopted by every other person I'd come in contact with.

I was furious, and terrified. Even as I summon the memory, I feel little tremors of fear. Why was I so frightened? What was it about these hipsters and their stupid causes that was freaking me out so badly?

I only know that I was about to find out just what her cause was, and even though I was scared, I was suddenly curious enough to want to know what the heck had inspired this person to kidnap me and take me to St. George. ...

And then the alarm went off.

I wish I could sleep for a very long time, at least until the end of my dreams. It seems so unfair to have to wake up and not know, almost like my brain knew when I was going to have to wake up and left me with a cliffhanger. Dreams are so strangely fascinating. I kind of love them a lot. Even when I'm being kidnapped by hipsters and it scares the bajunk out of me. :)