Summer Vacation

I spent a few days on the Oregon coast for a few days this month for my stepmother's family reunion. It was so beautiful there - I want to permanently relocate to a tiny beach house somewhere along there in the near future. Can you blame me?

I went crabbing for the first time while I was there - thankfully the rain stopped shortly after we started. It was fun, but wet. And I don't eat shellfish, so I didn't partake in the fruits of our labors. 

A few days after I got home, my friend Tina Spahkle came up for a visit. We had a lot of fun, most of it when we left our cameras behind, but we did manage to capture a few fun pictures while exploring Larrabee State park.

Most of the rest of my summer has been spent worrying about student teaching, finding a job, and facing the real world again. And I have a stack of partially read books I need to finish in the next four weeks. Good times.

This Is What I Have Time For

I know I have abandoned you, dear readers, these many weeks but I have been very, very busy. I do have a new car, which I should get a picture of, and my citation got deferred. If I can keep my driving record clean for the next year, I will be in the clear. Yay! Since I should really be reading a book I have to discuss tomorrow in a history class, I'm just going to post a few pictures to give you a look at what I have been up to lately. I promise I will be back soon, but this term, despite fewer credits, takes up way more time!

The Experience Music Project in Seattle

The Bug, getting ready to crawl

A poster in the women's restroom at The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle

The ward 50s/60s Sock Hop

The view from Larrabee State Park

One of the bright purple starfish you can find in the tide pools at Larrabee State Park

Flower Child and I enjoying the sun at Larrabee State Park one Friday afternoon

Another view from the park

Halloween And Assorted Other Uncertainties

In an effort to be outgoing and in honor of my new calling, I went to my ward's Halloween dance/party. I wasn't feeling particularly creative and my Daphne (from Scooby-Doo) costume had seen better days. So I just slapped on some goth nail polish, a bunch of black eyeliner, a black leather cuff I found at Claire's in the 'Claire's for Boys' section, and my beloved Supernatural Metallicar t-shirt and went as my evil twin. Not particularly creative, but I wasn't feeling particularly festive. Part of it was the hellacious week of presentations-being-criticized-by-the-professor-in-the-middle-of-them-in-front-of-the-rest-of-the-class and other school stresses. Part of it is that Halloween was my mom's second favorite holiday and celebrating it is hard still (seriously, almost had a complete and total meltdown on the bus two weeks ago because I overheard a man telling his daughter about the Great Pumpkin). And part of it was the fact that in the days of Yore, Parker, Treat Queen, and I (and any other assorted friends we could drag into the mayhem) would make Halloween fun, whether we did anything grand or not. So, the evening consisted of me trying to be involved and join groups and make friends and dance and enjoy the festivities, all the while thinking "if only Parker & Treat Queen were here." I can't lie, I breathed a sigh of relief when I left the party at 11. It just wasn't the same without my good friends. So many inside jokes, cryptic references, collective memories that were missing. And sometimes I don't know if I have the energy to start all over.

Big Crocodile Tears

Last week at this time I was here:

I got to spend a few short hours hanging out with my friends Treat Queen, ZB, Parker, and ZB's daughter Mini E and generally just realizing how much I missed hanging out with them. Sadly, HY, my little buddy from days of yore, was not feeling the pictures and also, being just over 2, had only a vague idea of who I was. Which meant I let one or two tears escape on my drive from Parker's house to my aunt & uncle's place. I have no idea when I'll be able to get down there again or how much time we'll have to play. Being a responsible adult stinks sometimes.

The Perfect Storm

Recipe for a migraine:

Start with days of stressful decision-making
Add a healthy dose of nights spent tossing and turning
Quickly fold in hours spent searching through reels and reels of microfilm, followed by hours toggling between windows on the computer
Mix in rapidly changing barometric pressure as storms roll in and out

This should be enough to create a good migraine, but if it isn't strong enough include the following:

One courier who smokes so much the smell permeates the office in a matter of minutes
A part-time employee from the local high school who bathes in that kind of cologne to which adolescent males are drawn.
A friend in crisis

In other, happier, news I turned in my application for the museum/art center job. I'll let you know what, if anything, happens. Also, tomorrow is TVboyfriend day. Huzzah!

Survivor's Guilt

I originally planned to write about the oddity that is a blind date. I had one, the first in a long, long time, on Monday. And it was fine. Nice guy, good conversation, a fine evening all around. Then I got home to a couple of phone messages from family wanting to make sure I was no where near Trolley Square. After hearing about the shooting, I realized my roommate was not home. And not answering her cell phone. Thankfully there was a saved message on our voicemail that meant she had heard it at some point after 9pm. Finally she called and explained that she was with a friend and co-worker at the hospital as he waited for news about his father, who was in surgery, and his brother, who was still in the ER. Sadly, his dad didn't make it. This whole experience just highlights how surreal life is. One hour I'm watching and cheering for vastly overpaid athletes at the Delta Center (excuse me, the Energy Solutions Arena) and the next I'm praying for the loved ones of people I barely know. So now I'm re-evaluating my priorities. Again. I think that might be the biggest challenge of this life, realizing and remembering what is truly important and what is just filler.

It's Official

I'm moving back home. My parents are driving down next Friday and by the following Monday I will officially be a resident of Washington state. I feel pretty good about this decision, even though it seems counter-intuitive. It also means just driving to the store to buy a couple more boxes or bins for packing is tinged with nostalgia. So here are the top 5 things I will miss about Salt Lake.

1. Miss Parker -- We have been roommates off and on for the last seven years and consistently for close to four. That is nearly four years of accumulated shared jokes, obsessions, adventures, disasters, and late night conversations. It will be weird not to see her everyday, to laugh or commiserate over the day's events. And I don't think instant messaging will be the same.

2. Friends -- With the exception of 3 individuals, all of my closest high school friends live between Logan and Spanish Fork. In addition, there are all the other friends I have made in my sojourn in Utah and I will miss all of them very, very much. Thank goodness for email, blogs, and cell phones to keep in touch!

3. The Salt Lake City Public Library -- I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love this place! It has 5 floors of books and two cafes that make the whole wonderfully-designed building smell of coffee and books. I can spend hours in there and often have. I will miss it dreadfully. My mother assures me that our regional library back home now has a website and you can order lots of different books, but it just won't be the same!

4. Shopping -- I'm moving to a rural town that doesn't even have a Target. The nearest Target is 70 miles away, as is the nearest shopping mall. After living in a state where I can walk to the nearest Banana Republic and Barnes & Noble, I think I will suffer major withdrawls. Not to mention I don't even know where the nearest Apple store is. I love drooling over the MacBook Pro at the Gateway, even if I don't have a clue as to when I'll be able to afford one.

5. Control Over the Remote -- I know I wrote about trying to cut back on TV watching, but now I have to give way to my parents' viewing choices. Luckily my mother and I enjoy much of the same programs, but I think I might have to give up House since my dad watches something else in that time slot. Also, everything comes on an hour later in the Pacific time zone. Which means Conan doesn't end till after 1am there. I'm too old to stay up that late!

Better Late Than Never

I realize it is December 1st and that Thanksgiving has come and gone, but since I spent most of Thanksgiving weekend focused on what I didn't have rather than what I did, I thought I would spend December being grateful for all the good things in my life. So today, I am grateful for reality. Yes, you read that correctly. I am grateful for reality. Today. Most days I am not. Most days begin with me saying out loud, to myself and possibly my alarm clock, 'Five more minutes,' at least twice because I don't want to face reality.

To fully explain today's gratitude for reality, I first have to start with an unsettling confession. Recently I have begun to think of having children as something I want to do. To do in the near future, not as some random possibility in the long-term. Maybe it is because my ovaries, after 17 years of wasted output, have suddenly begun to fear there will be a shortage of supplies and are sending random hormones surging through my system, butI have begun to coo over babies. Whatever the reason, rather than squealing 'EW!' and turning the channel when I happen upon TLC's A Baby Story, I pause and think, 'How lovely.' Well, the actual childbirth isn't lovely, but the newborn baby is. Thus, one of the things I was mentally complaining about during Thanksgiving: dying alone and being eaten by Alsatians.

Which brings us to today. I have been baby-sitting a lot lately for my friend Z, as she and her husband Mr. Conservative bought a new house and are doing all the labor-intensive moving and cleaning of the old house etc. So Wednesday night and today I baby-sat for Jr. while Z and Mr. Conservative got that last vestiges of furniture, dirt, and dust out of their old house. Jr. is 17 months old and absolutely delightful. We have fun driving cars off the back of the couch, rough-housing, and playing his favorite game, Empty-and-Fill the CD Rack. Usually I only watch Jr. for a couple of hours at a time, but today he was here for almost four. So the fun was interrupted by a rather foul dirty diaper. So foul, in fact, that I have been burning candles and Febreezing for several hours, but still think I smell it. If it weren't two million degrees below zero, I would open all the windows. And that my friends, is a reality for which I am thankful. Dirty diapers and not having enough hands, and the sheer exhaustion of being responsible for another human being makes me realize that possibly I'm not ready for that kind of commitment right now and also, thank goodness I'm not a single mom. Even if Jr.'s reddish hair and blue eyes make everyone around here think I am.

Count Your Blessings

Which is exactly what I did tonight. I sat down at my desk, squeezed a square of desktop between my keyboard and the five piles of paperwork stacked next to it and started to write thank you notes to everyone who sent something for my birthday. It was too quiet, but all the CDs in my room somehow seemed wrong and I knew that if I walked out into the living room to find the right ones, I would get sucked into doing something else. So I turned on the television hoping TNT was playing re-runs of The X-Files but instead found some procedural show in which the detectives solve old, previously unsolved crimes. This one revolved around a 12 year-old girl who was killed in 1990. It turned out that she was the victim of a group of horrible girls whose bullying lead to her death. It hit me at some point that I was 12 in 1990 and while I wasn't the small, underdeveloped, glasses-wearing nerd, I was the tall, overweight, glasses-wearing nerd. There were some horrible girls in junior high and high school and while the worst parts of me hope that they are fat when I see them at our 10 year high school reunion, I also had a great group of friends who were there through thick and thin, then and now. And for that I am eternally grateful. So to those wonderful girls from the class of '97: THANK YOU!

Basically Anything That Is Awesome

Wednesday night was the Evanescence concert at Saltair and it was awesome. You'll have to check out Miss Parker's blog for pics, since I don't have the mad computer skills necessary to link the iPhotoBooth session we indulged in when we got back from the concert. Plus she knows the guy who photographed the concert, so she also has a link to the actual concert pics. The concert was crazy fun, although it was a constant battle to not let my natural apathy towards humanity make me insane from all the unwashed masses pressing in on me. Luckily I found a spot behind a very tall young man who was like a brick wall. I could see over his shoulders and no one tried to mess with him. so thanks, Tall Guy, hope you had fun at the concert. I couldn't really tell since the only time you moved was to raise your hand and give the 'horns' when Amy Lee & Co. would start rocking exceptionally hard. Also, anyone up for seeing 30 Seconds to Mars at Saltair in November? It's Jordan Catalano (aka Jared Leto) in eyeliner!

Lucky Seven

So, Walking Fine Art tagged me and I decided, for once in my life, to participate. So here are 49 things you may or may not know about me:

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
1. Travel the world
2. Build my dream house
3. Write a novel and have it published
4. Live in a foreign country
5. Get out of debt – and stay out
6. Be able to write with my left hand as well as I do with my right.
7. Get LASIK surgery

7 Things I Cannot Do
1. Eat anything that came from a cow
2. Handle spiders
3. Visit a Holocaust museum
4. Play an instrument
5. Wear orange
6. Give up dark chocolate
7. Tell my right from my left

7 Things That Attracted Me to George Clooney*
*I know it is supposed to be ‘My Spouse’ but I’m single and George is practically perfect in my book.
1. Um, have you seen him?
2. The mischeivious twinkle in his eyes that never disappears.
3. He spearheaded the Sept. 11th charity telethon and was also active with those put on for the 2005 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina victims.
4. He refused to let Bill O’Reilly bully him and forced O’Reilly to put his money and his fame where his mouth was.
5. Really, check out Ocean’s 11. Yum.
6. He puts his money where his mouth is and finances/produces/directs etc. projects he believes in.
7. He and his father recently toured the Sudan on a fact-finding trip without Hollywood trappings in order to educate people on the horrors happening there of which America seems largely unaware.

7 Things I Often Say
1. S_______ S______, this is Scully. (Telephone greeting at work, I say it so often, I occasionally slip and say it when I’m at home)
2. That’s just crazy talk. (Usually said in my head in response to someone’s idea/request/demand at work. When I’m in a good mood. What I say when I’m in a bad mood would totally lower your opinion of me)
3. I need a nap.
4. Where’s my Secret Trust Fund!?! (One long-held fantasy, second only to George Clooney, involves some heretofore unknown relative leaving me a magnificently large inheritance)
5. Idiot! (Usually shouted at one of the many wretched drivers on the freeway, any time I see anyone on Fox News, and any time I hear someone from the Bush Administration speak about the war, the environment, the economy, national security, the global community, themselves, etc.)
6. No cheese.
7. What? (Because I have drifted off into FantasyLand and missed whatever just happened)

7 Books I Love
1. A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen (Well, pretty much anything by JA, but this is my fave)
3. Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
4. About A Boy by Nick Hornby
5. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
6. Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde

7 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
1. Charade
2. Rat Race
3. What’s Up Doc
4. Pride & Prejudice (with the caveat that I fast forward through any scene involving Mrs. Bennett.)
5. The Sting (Yummy Paul Newman, plus I always forget who knows what so it is always an adventure)
6. To Catch A Thief
7. Singin’ In The Rain

7 People I Would Like to Hear From
1. Esperanza
2. Miss Parker
3. CherBear
4. Katie
5. SJ
6. Panini (I know you have left the blogging world for a bit, but I’d still like to hear your answers)
7. My Mom (who doesn’t technically have a blog, but I’d still like to see her answers)

The End of Possibility

Yesterday I found out that a friend from high school died last weekend. I don't even know if friend is the right word, as we traveled in different circles that occasionally overlapped. Maybe 'friendly' would be a better term. Additionally, I hadn't had contact with this person since graduation nine years ago, so I didn't think that it would have too great of an impact on my life. It is sad and I feel for his family, but it didn't alter my plans or cause any deep brooding. Until today.


At about eleven o'clock this morning, my Yahoo LAUNCHcast started playing a UB40 song and the fact of my friend's death hit me hard. I flashed back to a junior high field trip. My friend had brought a Discman or something similar and some speakers to attach it to and we listened to UB40's cover of Fools Rush In while we joked and laughed and whiled away the long hours until we reached home. I believe this was also the trip in which he and a friend had purchased a rubber chicken and then accidentally lit it on fire. The best part was the chaperones having no idea what had happened despite the rising level of panic and rancid burning smell coming from our section of the bus. While these memories rushed through my mind, I fought back tears, not so much because I had lost someone in my life, because he hadn't been a part of my life in almost a decade. But rather because of the loss of possibility. I will never be able to reconnect with my friend. He will be absent at our ten-year high school reunion next year. There will be no reminiscing about starting rubber chickens on fire or any of the other crazy things that adolescents do to avoid boredom. There will be no excitement at discovering what the intervening years have held for us. Time had run out. I had been betting against time and it won. Like it always does.

I Do It All For You Mulder!

I have a confession to make. I’m on my second caffeinated beverage of the day. Well, actually my second Coke of the day. The sad fact of the matter is that not that long ago, Coke, Pepsi, and the like were not part of my routine. Then I started getting regular migraines, and having no health insurance and an allergy to acetaminophen, caffeine was my only relief. Thus began the downward spiral. Which brings me to today.

It has been a stressful week, even if it is only Wednesday. We finally got our network back up and running after nearly a month without it because of our office move. Which means there are about 4700 things I need to do that have been languishing in various piles on my desk. 4700 things I so don’t want to face. Additionally, even though I haven’t received my W-2 yet, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be paying several hundred dollars in taxes. Last year I got a whopping $7 back and in the intervening year, I’ve begun working full time and had two pay raises. So I’m a little stressed about when I’ll be able to eat again. Finally, people I know and love have been having major stress-causing issues pop up in their lives, which make me stressed. Which is all an explanation of why, last night, instead of doing the practical, responsible thing by going to bed, I stayed up until 1 a.m. watching reruns of The X-Files with Miss Parker.

They were great episodes, combining the humor and suspense for which the series was known. In addition, Parker and I have the retinue of private, inside jokes that accumulate from a shared obsession of over six years. We were cracking ourselves up during those two hours we watched. It was a great stress reliever. Plus, as my screen name indicates, Agent Mulder (and his alter ego, David Duchovny) is one of my oldest TV boyfriends, second only to one Mr. John Stamos, who captured my 8 year-old heart as Uncle Jesse and hasn’t quite relinquished hold of it. And thus, here I sit, sipping my Cherry Coke wishing I could take a nap, all because episodes of The X-Files, ones Parker owns on DVD mind you, were playing in real time on TNT. Where are my priorities?

I Can Still Smell the Hot Chocolate

I can still smell chocolate because last night I laughed so hard I shot my amaretto hot chocolate out my nose. Simply not being able to laugh and swallow at the same time is embarrassing enough, but to have it shoot from your nose onto a patch of kitchen floor 2 feet away is even more so. It was one of those wish-it-were-Friday evenings in which Miss Parker and I get extraordinarily goofy and not a little slap-happy. Several entries had already been made onto our make-shift quote wall on the side of the fridge, which is how I happened to be in the kitchen with my cup of hot chocolate. Parker had been filling me in on the happenings of the animal shelter charity event she volunteered at the night before. We were discussing our mutual desire to own Great Danes when she announced her decision to name her two future Great Danes Rufus and Scooby. The next sentence she mixed up the names and called them Rooby and Scufus. Hence the hot chocolate through the nose and the burning sensation that followed. As a result the world smells slightly chocolate-almond flavored. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps it is the olfactory equivalent of rose-colored glasses.

There Are Always Dinosaurs When You Don't Want Them

“There are always dinosaurs appearing when you don’t want them.” My roommate Miss Parker uttered these immortal words the other night while I was sitting on the couch with my Kleenex and orange juice watching the only thing on TV that my cold medicine-addled mind could handle, Jurassic Park III. Once my fit of giggles had subsided, we had the following discussion:

Me: But that’s the nature of the movie.

Parker (thoroughly exasperated): Yeah, but it’s like every five minutes. Give it a rest already.

The phrase stayed with me and struck me as quite a metaphor while I was sitting in my car, hazard lights blinking, off the 72nd S. freeway exit waiting for a tow truck to come and get Miss Parker’s car. All I had wanted to do that evening was curl up with a blanket on the couch, watch House and go to bed. I hadn’t gone to work due to the pernicious cold I’ve had for the last week, so an early bedtime and an uneventful evening was what I wanted. The uneventful part went out the window when a newscaster announced the building of an IKEA in Draper. Even sick, I had to do a little happy dance. But at 7:30, I got the call that Parker was stranded. Which is how I found myself sitting in my car by the side of the road pondering the metaphorical applications of Jurassic Park III.

How often in life do we complain about the omni-presence of ‘dinosaurs’? The problems, whether large and terrifying, or small and annoying, which seem to follow us through life. Last night it was Miss Parker’s car, a fairly recurring issue in her life. For me, it is a cold and $5 bank account balance (Mom, if your reading this, remember, I’m prone to hyperbole). Less immediate, but a seemingly much larger threat, is my complete confusion as to what to do with the rest of my life. Not all dinosaurs are hungry predators and not all issues in our lives are harmful, but even the gentlest brontosaurus is going to cause us fragile humans a little concern. It could crush us with its big toe! I’m pretty sure we can’t expect the last-minute rescue. Things are never as easy or as formulaic as in films, but I have to hope that at some point we will get more than a five-minute respite. Otherwise, I might have a nervous breakdown. Feel free to join me in the padded room.

Fire Alarms, Fantasy, and Family

The past weekend was one long string of Events, planned and unplanned. On Friday night I baby-sat for my friend Z’s four month old son Jr. while she and her husband went to see a local production of Camelot. My roommate, Miss Parker, had no plans that evening, so it was a team effort. The evening progressed without incident until our building’s fire alarm went off. Apparently someone down the hall had left something on the stove. I didn’t think there was any real danger, but there was the added stress of caring for someone else’s most prized possession. Mixed with the stress was a large amount of humor. For Miss Parker and I had, again, managed to unknowingly dress exactly alike that morning in matching black turtlenecks and jeans. So, as we left the building carrying a baby, a toy, and keys (having forgotten important items like a blanket and the cell phone) and wearing matching outfits, we ran into our alternative-lifestyle neighbors who were carrying their beagle puppy much like Miss Parker was carrying Jr. We hurried to my car, pausing only to inform a girl on her balcony that the alarm and the two fire trucks in the parking lot did indeed mean there was a fire. Luckily no one was harmed and the only result was a floor that smells of smoke.

Saturday was the day, after weeks of email scheduling, that Esperanza, Panini, Mrs. W, Mrs. L, and I were going to see Pride & Prejudice. It was quite a production just getting everyone there and in their seats. Which, due to the production of getting to the theater, were in the front row. We had gone in fully expecting it to compare poorly with our beloved 1995 BBC production starring one Mr. Colin Firth. This version fared quite well in the comparison and if Esperanza’s reaction is any indication, Colin Firth might have a run for his money in the “Favorite Mr. Darcy” contest. Although, the lack of a pond-swimming scene was universally mourned by all involved as we enjoyed dinner afterward.

Sunday was a Family Event. My cousin C recently turned 16 and we engaged in all the celebration that accompanies that event in an LDS family. There was the driving, and the first date, and the new religious responsibilities. Plus the requisite roast dinner. My parents had traveled down early for Thanksgiving, my brother Mime and The Future Mrs. Mime stopped in on their way back to their college after visiting The Future Mrs. Mime’s family. There was minor family drama, but I was still sad to have to leave, to return to my weekday life. And if truth be told, I listened to a bit of Christmas music on the way home in the hopes of cheering myself up.

Brighten a Rainy Day

Today was dark, grey, stormy and altogether unpleasant. It was also a solitary day as everyone in the office had somewhere more important to be. I thought it was more important for me to be in my flannel pajamas reading in bed, but alas I’m hoarding my vacation days for Christmas. None of the piles on my desk were urgent, so I sat and stared out the plate glass windows at the pounding rain, trying to find one redeemable quality in the day. As I watched the sun set behind the clouds at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I finally hit upon the answer.

I started this blog as an escape from work, a way to put down my thoughts without feeling like a melodramatic adolescent making furtive notations in her diary. The advantage was reconnecting with several high school friends who also have blogs. Even though some of them live less than an hour away and I see them on a regular basis, this exchange of ideas, thoughts, and the topics that concern us have allowed us to reconnect in a way that hearkens back to the many slumber parties and hours-long gab sessions of a decade ago. We are all in different places in our lives but the things that drew us to one another in junior high and high school have drawn us together again. So in honor of my rediscovered friendships, here are a few of my favorite quotes on friendship:

We think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university over another . . . the accident of a topic being raised or not being raised at first meeting – any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, here are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye haven’t chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, " Ye haven’t chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not the reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of others.
~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, pg. 126

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to the benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is in the sunshine.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Writing creates a sanctuary. It is a place where friends, although apart, can meet.
~ Sylvana Rossetti

To my dear friends past, present, and future who brighten my rainy days, Thank You!