fascination makes us sound

I had big plans for today. Really, I did. Those plans were significantly reduced when I woke up it was snowing and cold and overcast.  

And then all of my classes were cancelled (miraculous coincidence). Which meant sweats and socks and blankets and endless TV series marathons. I wish every day could be like today.

Snow days are excellent opportunities to do nothing but sit and reflect on all the adventures I’ve had. Documenting the little everyday things that make my life exciting—like house sitting and dog watching and car driving. Like making pies and listening to music. Like going hot tubbing with Bri and Pony. It was actually snowing while we were in the hot tub, making the whole experience significantly surreal. I was outside in my bathing suit sitting underneath falling snow. Definitely something I thought I would never do. My toes and fingers were numb from getting in and out of the scalding water, intermittently exposing my skin to literally freezing air. There was a point in the night where I was so hot that I could sit comfortably on the frozen cement with snow falling on my half naked body and not have it bother me one bit. Utah is ruining me and my aversion to cold weather. 

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Saturday alone was enough excitement to last me a lifetime. I went to the auditions of So You Think You Can Dance with my not-cousins and watched some incredible talent get praised and some non-talent get shot down. In case you were wondering, Mary' Murphy’s laugh is just as annoying in person as it is on the show.  

     

Saturday night we scored some courtside seats at the men’s volleyball game.

Despite the excitement brought by proximity to the well muscled men, the game sucked. Our team slammed them the first two games, then lost the last three. How tragic.

We left the game and headed to a dance. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like dancing. Anyone who knows my family really well knows that we’re big fans of loud music and energetic dance parties. All the time. While doing dishes or cleaning the house or making dinner. The last (and consequently most memorable) time we had a crazy dance party was the day before we moved—when the only furniture in the house was my brother’s intense sound system and a folding table. We were sitting in the empty house waiting for our mom to come home. We listened to Danza Kuduro trying to film a last minute music video and Party Rock Anthem, desperately trying to master the art of shuffling. Saturday night’s dance felt much the same. Disconnecting from the real world and dancing, doubling over with laughter, yet still moving to the rhythm of music blasting so loud that you can’t hear what the person next to you is saying. There was this one time that I sort of fell backwards and landed on a platform holding a drum set and the DJ’s table. It hurt my body a little and my pride a lot. At the end of the night I was sweaty and my ears were ringing and my stomach hurt from laughing (and my back hurt from falling) and I was so happy. I think I slept for ten hours that night.

I’ve spent glorious amounts of time with my seester, falling asleep watching Harry Potter and recording nonsensical songs.

Sometimes I decide to run away to her house. And it’s usually when I’m halfway there that I realize that I'm literally running. In shorts. In the cold. And it’s usually right in front of the Provo library that I want to curl up into a ball and die, because it would be better to freeze to death than to walk the two blocks further to her house against the icy wind.  

Other things I’ve been enjoying lately:

-coloring. Crayons and blank white paper have become something comforting.

-taking pictures of literally everything, despite weird looks from other people. Meet my Thursday night dinner in the making.

-iPods full of new music. It makes mundane activities significantly more exciting

-showers, razors, lotion, and shampoo. I frequently forget to appreciate those things, despite their uncanny ability to turn a crappy day into a mildly displeasing one.

-planning out the little details of my future. My house will absolutely have a big backyard, an infinity pool, and a gas stove.

-being outside.

Sometimes Provo isn’t so awful. Just different.

  Even though it’s not a tropical paradise, the sun still finds a way to shine here.

[Title from Restless Dream by Jack’s Mannequin]

struck down by the west coast

Last weekend was absolutely magical. Maaaaagical. It was full of insults and adventure and side splitting laughter. And bare feet. Heaven.

A group of girls (who claim me as their cousin, but it is absolutely not true) decided to rescue me from the rut that I’ve been in and take me town to southern Utah where there was no stress, just happiness and unicorns and rainbows.

See here’s the things about these girls. I just fit with them. There wasn’t even an awkward ‘get-to-know-you’ phase, no reservations, no nervousness about thinking what they might think of me.

Because trust me…they’re very open with how they feel about things. Especially me.

We didn’t do anything grand or significant. We spent the hours driving through the dark listening to music spanning from four different decades. We went to Wal-Mart, the late night and our tiredness from being cramped in a car too long caused to us find everything hilarious.

We made some dessert that took way too long to make and was consumed way too quickly.

Do you like the spoons in the middle of this picture? It took less than a minute for us to all inhale it. Seriously.

Supper flattering of everyone, I know.

We ate food and went shopping, as I suppose most college girls are prone to do. We also watched twelve year olds play basketball and we changed clothes in the back of cars and drove around with the windows down, listening to good music and yelling at men on motorcycles.

The best part of the whole weekend was when we pulled off the highway into St. George and realized that it was warm enough to roll down the windows, letting a warm breeze filter through the car and tousle our hair. Something about singing in cars with the windows down and the sun shining on your skin just feels beautiful. Like nothing else matters, things that are bad aren’t really all that bad, and the world is glorious and exciting.

Here’s the thing: people only have so much to offer. Even when you’re at the top of your game, you’re going to have imperfections and you’re going to have differences. Some people are okay with who you are—they like you and they try to appreciate you for what you are. But there are people that genuinely love you for who you are—people that can truly see the best in everyone. I love those people. And these girls are those people. They make me feel like I’m awesome, even when I’m tired or cranky or sad.

Clambering out of the car after a forty-five minute drive felt marvelous. Especially since it meant unfolding my cramped legs and stretching my arms high over my head—both to combat the tenseness in my muscles and to soak in the sun. I loved how it drenched me in warmth and sunlight, drying my hair still damp from the shower, spilling onto the ground making it warm enough for me to climb cement stairs barefoot and carefree.  I ambled down the side of the street lingering in the shade (because it was finally possible to be too hot), stepping on branches and cracks, wincing when my feet met a rock. My feet aren’t nearly as tough as they used to be.

In so many ways the weekend was a huge sensory overload—my days were packed with laughter and adventure and massive quantities of delicious home-cooked food (I miss living with a mother).

I wasn’t troubled by the past or worried about the future. I was just content to be living in the moment, to be literally basking in the sun. We never went to bed at a reasonable hour, yet it was impossible to sleep in the next morning because there was so much more fun to be had.

That’s me…on someone else’s cell phone. I’m so cool.

We went to the most incredible rendition of Beauty and the Beast, orchestrated by a genius drama teacher and some incredibly talented middle-schoolers. I absolutely set my standards lower than I should have and was blown away by the adolescents’ ability to adopt a new persona with such precision.

These three were, in my opinion, the most convincing actors. Also I don’t know why girls find it necessary to squat in pictures…perhaps I was trying to increase my chances of dating a studly seventh grader by descending to his level? Ha. No idea.

And having made an appearance at a middle school we somehow found it necessary to crash a high school dance. So we did. Just a group of college girls taking a room full of awkward, sweaty, hormonal teenagers by storm. We were really the only ones dancing and I’m sure everyone was heartbroken by our departure after ten minutes. But I’m cool now because I’m in college and I can do things like this—parading around an unfamiliar high school like I have some sort of authority. Mostly I’m slowly being corrupted by the influence of these girls.

It was rough coming home—back to reality, to responsibility, to a pile of dirty laundry and a lot of unfinished homework. Though I was completely exhausted, I felt like my spirits had been lifted and somehow I was ready to go back to the routine of life with a little more enthusiasm and a little more zeal.

Thank you so much to Haynie family for opening their home to a band of loud, obnoxious girls—for the air mattresses and the meals and the patience it must have taken to have your house invaded. For providing a safe haven; a temporary break from real life.

And thanks so much to you beautiful non-cousins of mine for a fantastic weekend.

[Title from More Than Alive by The Ready Set]

morning light

Happy Valentine’s Day!

[thanks to alyssa and heather for announcing my single-ness to my building. the boys across the hall especially enjoyed that]

 

Contrary to my foil-embedded fortune implying that I’m destined to spend a chubby life alone with chocolate, today was lovely and wonderful things happened. And yes, I have a valentine. We’ve never actually spoken in real life and he’s probably not aware that we’re destined to be married [or maybe that I even exist]…but I think it’ll work out just swell.

My lovely mother sent me a care package a few days ago filled with love and happiness and treasures.

My favorite things were the ones that were unrelated to any February Holidays—things that reminded me of the ocean and the beach and sunshine. Because even from several states away, my mom always knows what I need. Like eyeshadow with a hue smack dab in the middle of green and blue. Just like the ocean.

Like mango chapstick that combats the cold weather and smells like warm weather.

And a note, reminding me of who I left behind—who’s really important in my life.

That’s right—CAT misses me!

The whole thing deterred me from thinking about V-Day and made me wish I was on a beach with my family, leaving me carving more surfboards out of soap bars. There’s a possibility that my roommates may have thought I was weird/crazy when they walked in and found me with the window open, letting in the icy wind and furiously using a paring knife and a carrot peeler to brutally attack a helpless bar of soap, transforming it into something representative of better days.

It led me back to being nostalgic about Florida. I made a mental clarification—that “Florida” isn’t really just the state. It’s the whole package—the memories, the feelings, the events, the people. It’s the life I had there that I can never, ever have again [though that doesn’t stop me from trying to recreate it].

Feeling like a huge mental hurricane was about to hit, I escaped up the hill to my cousins’ house and decided to put my mental restlessness to good use.

I put all my energy into making dough into perfect circles, making tangible things come together perfectly while surveying the disarray in my head. Day dreaming of things that might have happened, things that can never happen, and things that will absolutely happen…someday. I don’t know why I find comfort in remembering the way things were, because things weren’t always good in Florida. But for some reason creating an alternate universe, where home is still Florida and my parents are still married and Jada’s still here, is such a great escape. I spent most of my life creating ideas about what my life was going to be like—about getting married in Florida or spending summers on 25th Court. It’s hard to let so many years of dreams go. It’s hard to find new dreams when there’s no foundation, no backdrop to set them against. There’s nothing certain about my life or my future, and I’m not at a point where that’s exciting yet.

So for now I’m content to remember. To remember the way it feels to dive into a pool in the summer, the water bringing relief to your skin stretched tight by the heat of the sun. To remember the time that Jace and I stole a stop sign, the time Dusty and Kevin and I threw TVs out of the bed of a truck onto residential streets. To be content just replaying those memories in my mind now, having that be enough for today.

I don’t dislike my life now, and I’m sure there will come a time when it will be fun to look back on these days—to relish in the memories I’m making that I’m not even aware of. But it’s easier to indulge in memories that I know are good, ones that I already love.

So I have no real conclusions about what’s good, what’s bad, or what’s unhealthy. I’m still trying to figure out why the grass is greener on the other side. I’ll let you know when I’ve figured out the answers to life’s deepest questions. It might take a while.

I did have a really exciting weekend that I’ll be recounting in the coming days. One where I was barefoot and in shorts [because I went somewhere warm, not because I’m crazy]. Be excited. Because I am.

[Title from Mr. Right by A Rocket to the Moon]

leave the weeping to the willow trees

If you’re here for the story of how I got kicked out of class, prepare to be disappointed.

Much to my own disappointment, I wasn’t kicked out because I did anything disrespectful, disruptive, or even mildly entertaining. It was an unreal, uncommon, uncomfortable experience that ended with me being asked to withdraw from the class. That’s right—I wasn’t just kicked out for the day, but for life. It was a long day that led to meetings and paperwork and me trekking back and forth from office to office crying and hating everyone. And it also ended with me in the department head’s office listening to him be really nice and apologetic and me thinking he was the greatest, nicest, most kind person in the whole entire world. It also left me enrolled in a night class. 6:30-8:45. My absolute worst nightmare. Hooray.

As always, the only thing capable of cheering me up was going through my phone and looking at texts/pictures people have sent me. I decided that some of them are so lovely that they needed to be shared with the world.

This explains why I haven’t been getting any mail…

This one was accompanied by a text that said “next time you’re on campus we’re so doing this”.

Getting this picture made me so happy and so sad. Also the photographer gets ten points for having the beach in this picture and twenty points for taking a picture of her feet. Thirty points to Gryffindor! {hahaha. ha.}

As I’m sure the entire world is already aware, my family got a dog.

…yet Kenyan still likes cats.

Which is why we sent her back to the hospital for more surgery.

{by the way, this is the surgeon who put my ear/face back together. I wonder when he’ll start to get tired of operating on my family…}

I still get picture updates on school projects, even though I don’t get to help with them anymore. College projects are so much less fun.

This dress…which I’m hoping wasn’t a suggestion of things to wear…

This:

And of course, some old pictures of people that I really like.

And, as always, a picture of my feet.

[Title from Honey and the Bee by Owl City]

{P.S. this is my wall:

it’s sad. soooo I’ve decided I’m going to have a contest to see who can mail me the best pictures/drawings/etc. there’s already some heavy competition with a picture of hawaiian surf and a coloring book page full of disney princesses. may the most creative person win}