melodic kosher

bu-buh-back to the vans.

2011-06-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

I want to share a snippet of geology life. Only a snippet ,promise, because I know most people zone when they start to hear my geology-speak.

Half of my educational career has been spent in a 12-passenger van. Sometimes they are driven very swervily. And sometimes they are driven on cliffs where I have to close my eyes, put my hands on my face, and make weird noises to ignore what seems like an imminent car-roll down a mountainside.

The morning of field trips are the same: we students fold ourselves into awkward positions in efforts to catch up on sleep and then desperately hope that somehow the drive to the field will be longer that day in order to sleep more. It never is.

(look! gettin' cozy up'n'hur in the vans too)

The vans enjoy all the mud we track into them and then thank us for it by providing refuge from the coldness that persists even when its June. Vans also shelter the persistent leaner – or the person who falls asleep on everybody’s shoulder regardless of who, when, or how (you know who you are).

I’ve got meself a special van card in my elk wallet allowing me to drive one of these beaut’s. On the list of things I don’t want to do in my life, driving a 12 passenger van is below eating bratwurst but above getting unfixable facial injuries. But I fear my time to drive it is coming soon now that I’m a big-bad grad student and all. May I live to still secretly love them.

The Growler

2011-06-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

I would probably be remiss if I didn’t mention Abbie at least once.

Abbie is old now and most likely deaf. Her once energetic little body is knobby and trembles slightly whenever she walks. She runs into the wall and when she looks at me through cloudy eyes I see her as a crazy old lady with white hair who smacks her toothless gums while pointing her finger at me like she’s got something to be angry about.

Abbie is my dog, and I know it’s silly to be sentimental about animals, but I am, because I came home and suddenly she’s so old and senile. The vet thinks she had a stroke, and I wonder if an abrupt lesson in mortality is on its way.

Abbie likes to sit on my mom’s shoes and growl at anyone who comes near. She likes to rip open my presents when it’s my birthday. This morning when I took the 15-year-old on a walk she decided to have her morning constitution in the middle of the street, which the garbage truck promptly ran over. Oops.

Abbie, wearing her torn-up bed as a protective shell. It's normal.

Anyways here’s to the sometimes annoying canine whom I wheeled and dealed so hard for when I was eight. She growled at me when we went to go pick her up as a puppy. But I think we’ve gotten over that by now.

Nature is neat.

2011-03-11T22:07:00.000-08:00

Spending time in the great outdoors makes me happy.

Take this for example:

That expression may look like a grimace, but I think that’s actually the face I make when I can’t floss because I’ve been camping. Really, I couldn’t be happier to be right next to this delicately (pun appreciated) fractured, eroded, and weathered Entrada Sandstone!

I just realized I’ve been to N.I.N.E. different national parks in the last two years.

Two things are common in park culture:

1. There are more Europeans than Americans.

2. Europeans carry walking sticks.

I’d like to comment on the latter first.

Dear Europe,

Walking sticks, really? You’re not even carrying a backpack, Moses. And you’re on a trail.

Love, non-sedentary Americans.

But here are my more important thoughts on the first:

Hello Americans, go explore your country! It’s so great! Eurotrash is outnumbering us on the trails of ours truly. When the Sierra and I went to the Grand Canyon last year, all of our friends back in Provo said they’d never been. But I think half of France has. I’m pretty good at math, so you can trust me that Provo is indeed closer to the Grand Canyon than France. What’s going on here, dear people? Just because it’s close, doesn’t mean it’s not cool…

And since nature’s cool … I think we could save it too. So while you’re here click on this cool link about clean energy! Being a tree hugger isn’t synonymous with crazy-socialist-PETA either, so don’t be afraid to say it.

Yep, here it is: my one true love that’s not going anywhere, at least for a few million years.

Why yes, I will.

2010-12-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

Circa age 11, I discovered that the whole gum in your digestive system for 7 years thing is a myth. That’s because 7 years previous I had swallowed gum, very much on purpose, just because my mom told me not to. My gum ingestion was motivated by the desire for freedom. Sort of.

Motivation is important. There’s a million.5 ways to define people and I say that one way to define someone is by what motivates them. Perhaps on the surface you’re motivated by Reese’s Puffs, or by attention from boys, or by saving baby chimpanzees.

But if I were to make a huge generalization, I would say that the main motivators of the human spirit boil down to two things: freedom and love.

Freedom makes you want to think for yourself. Love makes you want to keep commandments and follow others. It seemed that the two were always at odds with one another until recently. Are obedience and freedom opposing forces?

(Probably not and here’s why)

If our main motivator is love . . . then the obedience/thinking for yourself thing falls into place. Because if I really love someone, I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit for them. So then it’s not like I’m a blind bandwagoner. I’m thinking for myself and I’m thinking that I love someone else more than me and am willing to do what they ask. Still very much free, just using my freedom to show love through obedience.

This puts my anti-establishment spirit at rest a bit. Because obedience doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking for yourself. It means you are thinking about more than yourself.

And a Merry Christmas to you.

for the sake of camaraderie

2010-08-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find myself doing things I don’t actually want to do.
This one time, a car passenger of mine, rolled down the window and began snaking her hand up and down like her fingers were doing ski jumps.

“Don’t you like to do this?” Passenger says, phalanges flowing freely through the wind.

Me (thinking): No, not really. In fact, I wish you’d stop because if the car suddenly crashes right now we will be frozen in time as “those” people who do things like “that.”

Me (in actuality): “Sure,” while rolling down my window and watching my fingers unfold a life of their own.

Rolling down your car window and sticking out your hand is probably not a big deal; I get that. But there seems to be some things unavoidable, especially in the girl sphere, and it upsets me. Namely, like, such as, Bachelorette things and Twilight things and so on.
When faced with the opportunity to see a Twilight movie, I only had 2 options.

Do I . . .
a. Stay home, scowl superiorly, prove my point, and refuse to talk about it because that would only give it more attention (like I’m doing right now. Dang it. )
b. Go, swallow that pride, and “bond” with my sistas (speaking figuratively, not literally, although the literal sisters may apply here too)

Do I be antagonistic or agreeable? WHAT do I do??!! In this great contest of reason vs. feelings . . .

It’s a talent to stick up for things that are good while still letting people know they’re loved.
It is now that I have come to this conclusion:

People > points proven.

If our motive is really to help people and not push our own agendas, that’s good right?

Because it's hit me lately that Christ wasn’t crucified to prove a point, but to save people. It didn’t matter if no one saw and no one knew. It didn’t matter if the event was unrecorded and the rest of history went on quite naturally with this whole thing forgotten. We were rescued from our own destructive selves. That’s what mattered. Love is much more than a system of checks and balances.

So yes, stick your hands out my window dear car passenger, because you are more important to me than the stigma of hand wavers.

Love, Chloe.

Titled.

2010-06-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve been staring quizzically at my friend, who is not actually person, for quite awhile.
I think he changes his facial expression like every twenty minutes but all in all, his meaning his clear:
“Hi, Chloe. You suck at this. But I’m not going anywhere. Love you long time.”

My friend is the Decision. He sits glaring and not once has he ever blinked , even though I sit there sometimes squeezing my eyes shut, in hopes that when I open them, he is gone.

He’s never gone. I’ve realized I’ve got to do something about him.

I’ve been plagued with phantasmagoric mental states: Decision as it turns out, is a shape shifter. Occasionally he has blonde hair or occasionally he is a grad school or occasionally he is a crappy summer apartment.

The point is that he’s ubiquitous and entirely unavoidable, which I guess when you think about it, is kind of the point. Because if he weren’t ubiquitous and entirely unavoidable, well then I’d guess we wouldn’t really be souls. Just robots learning to perform a function. Because if everything in life could be fixed by reading the right things or going to the right places, wouldn’t we just be learning how to compute?
Ah. I guess that’s where the whole choosing thing (and closely related cousin: faith) comes in handy.

Someone wise once said: “In mortality, choice isn’t a goal, it’s a method.”

Which at first seems like a nice flowery phrase, but really it means so much. Choice is a method. Not a goal. So the point is not to have choices, but to make them! Cool! And scary!
Choices are not to be collected and put on a bookshelf, looked at and examined, until they are dusted away by the cleaning fairy. No sir. They are to be used. They are utensils.

So this is why I decided (oh!) Decision is my friend and not my enemy. Maybe he’s still the friend I love but don’t like . . . but I’m getting there.

Recurring Themes

2010-06-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

So me and Sierra hit the road this last weekend for a camping trip in the Grand Canyon.

We were acting so grown up! Planning it all, fixing the car, having our own tent, oh man. We're like super adults now.

But of course, every vacation needs its indulgence. We had lots of Oreos (more of a staple than a luxury) but even splurged on some Dr. Pepper. It was Heritage Dr. Pepper. Real sugar and no syrup! Also, it comes with letters in a groovy font.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you see where this is going.

It was Sunday morning. We found a branch that met inside the Grand Canyon and we're all dressed up ready to go (evidence of grown up ness!) We were even ready for church EARLY. So we decided to put a few of those precious cans into the cooler for cold-keeping.

Sierra did it. She picked up on DP and dropped it. It bounced off the cooler. It exploded. Into the dirt.

Shrapnel splattered all over us -- a sticky combination of Dr. Pepper and mud all over our Sunday clothes.

As if the sight of two twenty-one year old girls walking around a campground in dresses wasn't weird enough, you could say we looked a a bit more funny.

I hope the Bishop didn't notice.

Practicality

2010-05-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

It’s raining outside and I don’t believe in sharing umbrellas.

There are three things in this world that really shouldn’t be shared: boyfriends, umbrellas, and *hymn books.

I mean consider the outcomes of umbrella sharing: you both get wet. That generally is the only outcome. And then there’s the whole walking in sync thing during which someone’s elbows always get in the way. Really, it’s okay, we don’t have to share; I’ll sacrifice someone for total dryness. Even myself.

So . . . unless you’re height allows you to get your hair totally wet under my super short showerhead . . . one of us (you) should wear a hood. Because the day I share an umbrella with you is a special day. Consider it my sign of true affection.

As a disclaimer. . . I’m really not that selfish. One time I shared my Reese’s Puffs.

* stop giving me looks when I don’t take a corner!

mine over matter

2010-04-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

5 years ago, if there was one place I never thought I’d be with one outfit I never thought I’d wear, it was in the bottom of an open pit mine with a hard hat and prison-orange vest.
Guess what? Last weekend I shattered all my expectations and did just that. I was in a mine, with some very unfashionable sailor-mouthed geologists, who drove big trucks with little red flags on them. I trudged through wet, sticky muck (official mining word) and stood next to a scary machine with wheels as tall as two of my abnormally tall little brothers. It was an adventure.
We like to lick rocks in geology. Some are salty and some stick to your tongue and sometimes you just need to know. And in the mines there were quite a few rocks I couldn’t keep my tongue off of. However, I learned one very important lesson about using your taste buds as chemical indicators. In case you ever happen to be in the bottom of a mine, let me share:

This is chrysocalla.

Totally lickable. It sticks to your tongue or, in some cases, really sweaty palms.
(also a source of copper, super cool!!!)

This is realgar.

See how pretty?? I know you’re salivating, but don’t lick it! Just don’t! It’s 90% arsenic (something I knew) and can poison you (something I didn’t believe). Totally not lickable. Still take-home-and-show-your-friends-who-probably-don’t-care-able.

So there’s your geology lesson for the day. You can thank me later.

The Chronicles of Chloe's Nose: Part Two

2009-11-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

For the record, this blog is by popular demand. I don’t really intend to gross you out with detailed descriptions about nose excretions. But consider this your warning.

Ok. So. Gummy bears are great right? It’s a fruit snack on a sugar high, as well as being shaped like an animal. 75% of people prefer food that is shaped like an animal. Why else would anyone eat animal crackers?
Thus, one day, as in today, I decided to eat a pack of gummy bears. With like 100g of sugar per bear, it was good sustenance for my chemistry (aka the happiness vacuum) study session. I happened to be at work in the weight room, sitting at the attendant’s desk, which to paint the picture, is a square fish bowl, complete with 4 glass walls so I can gaze out dreamily at the buff men lifting weights.
I’m not really sure how it happened. One minute I was chomping on the gummy bear herd trying to figure out which color was so pleasantly sweet, when something went awry in the esophagus region. I inhaled at the most unfortunate time and then felt it. Gummy bear had definitely gone up my nose. It was most assuredly lodged.
On the seriousness scale from paper cut to heart attack, gummy exposure is a 7. Maybe you haven’t felt it yet but it’s like something experienced at the dentist. Painful. I got a drink of water and cleared my throat a few times, but the gummy bear remained, sending sharp pings through my sinus cavity. I could feel the gummy bear getting comfortable as my own discomfort increased and I wanted to take a hammer to my head. I huffed a little more, trying to act normal in the square fish bowl. The stubborn gummy bear just wasn’t budging.
I blew my nose. I blew it again. And one more time. And then I felt it. A great satisfying “whoosh” followed by pieces of green gummy bear in my tissue. Yes. It came out my nose.

It’s disgusting, I know.
Beware of the bear.

Let your so _

2009-11-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

I was recently the victim of two do-gooders in one week.

The first incident was on a Monday. I had just finished taking a test. After I retired my stressed-out eraser, I was greeted on the staircase by an odd group of happy people. One of these happy bunch asked me “Did you just take a test?” with a bit much too enthusiasm than a conversation about exams merits. I hesitantly wobbled my head in the affirmative. The happy crowd then burst into flames, I mean applause, and gave me 3 “you did it!” ‘s and 2 “congratulations” and handed me a cookie. They did the same to the other suffering test-taker walking behind me.

It felt . . . good. And I got a cookie.

I was struck again the next day by a phantom bed-maker. I came home and noticed my flattened sheets. I stared quizzically at them like one of those art history people looking at a painting. I will never be one of those art history people, but I did conclude that it was not I who made that bed. Someone had definitely done those tight corners for me.

So thank you to all the do-gooders out there who I may never meet or who may live next door. I’m glad you stopped looking at your facebook, or doing whatever else we/I do, to think about me instead. :)

an ode to skidmore sustenance

2009-10-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

Instant breakfast comes in can or it comes in a pouch.
You don’t have to do much, just empty it out.
Pick up a spoon
And you’re likely to croon
As you taste the sweet goodness it’s all about.
It’s fast and it’s easy -- no bowls and no plates
Maybe that’s why I’ve been drinking for 8 years straight.
It’s chocolate, it’s milk, it’s in a glass
So hurry, get up, and don’t be the last
To wake up. Really, trust me, don’t over sleep
Or else you’ll get stuck with the shredded wheat.

thoughts as a ukelele is played outside my window.

2009-09-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

What is it with this guitar that didn't drink it milk?

I hope other international instruments become popular too.
Like the didgeridoo.
I actually spelled that right on the first try.

But look,

It almost has the same chick appeal.

Juice Press

2009-09-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

One of my professors recently said that the best questions are the ones with no answers.
The best questions are the ones with no answers.
Huh. Maybe it’s just me, but I was blown away, and sat there in class ignoring the geologic history of Utah and instead trying to think if I’ve ever asked a “good” question. Because, call me crazy, but I rather like having answers. They’re warm and fuzzy and fit into neat little compartments like a plastic bead organizer.
It’s like this one time, in math, one of the nerdy -“I love pi” T-shirt -wearing TA’s did a proof that showed 1 +1 does not equal 2. It left me fidgety and uncomfortable, because he basically told me that everything I ever thought I knew was actually wrong.
Anyways, I’m moving my lawn chair outside the box now, and have recently compiled a list of life-changing questions to which I have no answer.

(Not all original thoughts, so sorry if I stole yours)
 Why is processed meat in cylindrical form (i.e. hot dog, sausage) acceptable but not in cube form (i.e. Spam)?
 Why do you grow up thinking there are only two kinds of apples?
 Whatever happened to the scrunchie?
 Are Elvis and Michael Jackson in the same place?
 Why are girls in large groups incapable of making decisions?
 Why does it require scissors to open a new pair of scissors?
 Why hasn’t someone installed the no-touch bathroom door yet?

That’s all I’ve got for now. Send your unanswerables my way.

one day I will conquer it.

2009-08-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Not to make this blog a public forum about stupid things that happen to me, or rather I cause to happen to myself, but some things are too good for me to resist the opportunity to talk about myself.
So I had issues with Dr. Pepper but apparently that’s not the only thing that generally disagrees with me.

Let me tell you a story, or two.
Three days ago my two roomies and I were walking aimlessly by the fenced- in apartment pool when for some reason an irresistible compulsion to climb the fence came over me and I could not ignore it. It was completely illogical; we had a key, which would have been a much easier way to get in the pool, but who wants easy when you can have fun? I just needed to see if I could climb it (foreshadowing: I couldn’t).
So I begin the ascent and discover my imminent success or failure depends on a skillful leg throw over maneuver.
I’ll let this picture do the talking of how well that went:

it bit me!

Both leg and swimsuit got caught on the fence. But considering the swimsuit is far less replaceable, it’s a good thing that one came out unscathed. Thanks be to Kylie for kind of .. um.. unhooking me.

Sadly, however, this is not the first time I’ve been unhooked.
The last time happened out about a year ago.
This time the fence climbing was out of necessity. My sister and I got locked in to our high school track. And since my high school has become increasingly ghetto since I left, there was barbed wire everywhere, except for one small patch of chain link. I climbed it but lingered at the top because I was being a wussy-pants who did not want to jump. Well, the uneven chain link was poking my butt in a rather uncomfortable manner, so I took the plunge. Except mid jump I got caught mid-air, my feet dangling just inches above the ground.
The chain link, had, uh, caught my pants. And yes, I was dangling by my pants that I could hear slowly ripping, as I hung there helplessly, getting the biggest wedgie of my life.

This would be the result of that fence encounter:

Those are my shorts. Those are my hands going through the giant holes in my shorts.

Thanks be to Becki Lyn, for, yes, definitely unhooking me.

True Expectations

2009-07-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided something.

He’s Just Not That Into You is one of the worst movies. Like ever. First of all, it was terrifyingly informative. Thanks to it, no one can go on innocently believing that that certain person maybe just dropped his phone in the toilet or was kidnapped by aliens who ate each one of his fingers thereby rendering him incapable of any text messaging abilities.
But really the worst part involves little Miss Scarlett Johansson and her hussy ways. For those of us who haven’t been unenlightened by this movie, let me fill you in. Scarlett Johansson hits on a dude, who she finds out is married, but continues to chase anyway, because after all, as her devoted friend Drew Barrymore tells her –--- she knew someone who knew someone who was married to a “nice lady” for 15 years but had an affair and only then found the love of his life. Wow, hello Selfish. And may I add, yeah right.
Obviously an affair is bad. But the harmful thing to those with consciences is that it shows reality as truth.
I was talking with a friend about this movie, and that part in general, and getting heated as it made me increasingly upset, when he said the most alarming thing:
“Well, it’s true! It happens!”

Whoa. By no means is it true. Maybe it’s real. But not true.

There is reality and there are expectations. There is the POWER of expectations. And then there is the power of expectation tainted by reality but not bolstered by truth.
I could probably find eighteen super Velveeta quotes about what people can become, etc, but I’ll just leave it at one to prove my point:
“If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (German guy who wrote Faust)

We often say that people are greedy.
We say they’re lustful.
We say they’re lazy.
We say that people act on impulses and can’t be trusted.

But consider this:
“Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. “
As they are to come.

Which I can spin this way: If we expect people to be good; if we expect them to be giving and clean and industrious and trustworthy, then that is what they are to come, and that is true.

"Truth, and goodness, and beauty are but different faces of the same all."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nostalgia, or a bunch of semi philosophical thoughts that don't make whole lots of sense

2009-06-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

I can’t stop myself from thinking about THE END. Not the end of anything in particular, and not the end of all ends, but just the end of some things that do indeed end.

Like right now, it’s the end. Of the semester. And of the archetypal physics TA’s. And of working in the tennis courts every Tuesday afternoon. And of waiting for the old man with shaky knees who’s always had a bag full of tennis-ness.

Even if its’ not sad, even if you want to go, it’s a little hard to leave some places. Most places. Even if the reason you’re leaving is because there’s a puddle of hot tears that’s still pooled beneath that bed. Or even if you are saying sianara to that class which may cause premature gray hairs. When The End rings your doorbell and stands there waiting, it’s a little hard to put on your flip flops and casually walk out the door with him, isn’t it?

It’s because I want to make sure that all the little pieces resonate inside me. That when I leave the leaky fridges or the well-worn pencils, they still buzz around, making up my molecules. That The End isn’t just a benchmark but a culmination. That when The End does ring my doorbell, he reaches out to shake my hand and notices that I didn’t just live, but I lived until life got stuck under my fingernails.

What happened when I blew my nose today

2009-05-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

So with a lack on anything important to say, and still having 1, 2, 3, FOUR hours of “work” left (i.e. Facebook/ truth-or-dare with coworkers) I decided to tell everyone that today I had unusually colored snot.

I have a cold which is a. weird because it’s time for hot and b. annoying because lately I have been the #1 gusher of snot.

Anyways, today when I blew my nose, my snot was a starkly different shade of burnt sienna. Like the crayon not Sierra’s imaginary twin.
For a few interesting seconds, I thought I’d discovered the secret mutant power I always knew I had and was working on my X-men alias (suggestions anyone?), but then I realized this puce brown was only due to all the DUST, AND MORE DUST, I’d been breathing today. Yes, because in my quest to become a real geologist, I got to put all the rocks in the Crusher. And the Crusher has caused me to swim in a cloud of sandstone dust that will soon penetrate every hole in everything everywhere. There are two big-giant black-vacuum-sucker- tubey things to suck dust but they are no match for the Crusher. Especially after I broke the switch for the big-giant-vacuum-sucker-tubey things so now instead of turning it to “auto” you have to turn it to “blank black area” for it to work. That was after, of course, I broke BOTH paper towel dispensers. Lesson learned the hard way: when it says pull down with both hands, you should do it. It’s not just a suggestion. Otherwise you may find yourself chasing down the custodians in the women’s bathroom to fix the precious paper towel rolls, while your coworker stands there laughing with a wet rock hammer in his hand.

The Crusher. I think I’ve got the black lung, pop.

Darwinism takes on parking

2009-04-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

It was a crazy day at the University Mall. The weather was turning friendly again giving everyone an excuse to indulge in the new summer freedom from things with buttons and long socks and fuzzies and instead buy things that are buttonless, sockless, and fuzziless.

The parking lot was, of course, full, since mall parking lots are always full. But then as I pulled around the corner, I saw a beautiful dream park, only one spot away from the handicap.

It was then that it dawned on me that finding a good parking spot is about more than just parking. Why else would we insist on parking in the really good spot when the weather is kind and it could only be beneficial to walk a few extra feet in charitable sunshine? I know our sedentary lifestyles can get pretty exerting, but really a few more feet? A few more prancing little steps on the only lukewarm asphalt?

The reason is that parking is about more than just parking. There’s a reason why passengers twitch involuntarily when their drivers pass up the good spot.

It’s because parking is about triumph. It’s about success. Parking is survival of the fittest. No one can pass up the good spot because it makes you the alpha parker. You are closer than anyone else, which means that anything that’s going to happen after you park is gonna be good.

Getting the good spot is a success you can brag about it. No good-spot-finder walks hurriedly to their car with their head cast down at the asphalt. They strut, take their time, and dangle their keys with bravado. In a show of mock humility, they can smile, knowing there is probably a pack of thirsty good-spot-scavengers just waiting for them to hurry up and leave.

Then there are those who somehow have all the good spots completely to themselves. They are the ones that guard their territory so ferociously that they will use any means necessary – boot, tow, ticket, torture – to keep you off of it. It doesn’t matter if the lot’s completely empty and its two degrees outside and it’s snowing and you’re in heels and your perfect hair is about to get ruined. It’s theirs. Not yours.

Survival of the fittest.

If only the strong survive, it’s my guess that the first superhuman . . . will be the one that can park.

Not My Thing

2009-02-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

Some things are just not meant to be.

Michael Jordan will never be a baseball player, Shaq will never be a rapper, and I will never buy Dr. Pepper without something going terribly awry.

Circa March 1, 2008 I bought a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper. It was a prized treasure. Slowly, I rationed each can to stretch the goodness as long as possible. By March 7, there were three cans left. By March 7, I also had to go out of town. But I knew that there waiting for me when I got back, would be three happy little cans, anxious to be consumed. Or so I thought. Upon my return to my dorm room, I found the cans MIA from their hiding place under my bed. My first suspect: the roommate. I watched her suspiciously and analyzed the contents of the trash can, before she confessed that someone across the hall had come in and drank them. Every. Last. One. This Dr. Pepper delinquent promised to pay me back (she didn’t) but failed to see the opportunity costs of a Dr. Pepper when you live in a dorm. They’re worth more than money. No one had cars to access a normal grocery store and there was not a drop of caffeinated beverage sold on campus. I could have bartered to get an iPod with enough Dr. Pepper.

That was incident number one. Incident number two involves another seemingly average 12 pack of Dr. Pepper. This time it’s in an apartment, and instead of stowed under my bed, they were on top of my fridge. Sierra, oh my lovely Sierra, decided to take a Dr. Pepper. But reaching on top she didn’t get just one Dr. Pepper, she unleashed an army of them. Catastrophically, all the cans started rolling off the top of the fridge, bouncing explosively on the kitchen floor. Streams of Dr. Pepper sprayed out like a dancing fountain and flooded the floor with 23-flavored foam. The counter was sticky. The floor was sticky. The wall was sticky. The couch in the other room, somehow, was sticky. There were only three survivors: Sierra and 2 cans of DP.

Two disasters is bad, but just a weird coincidence. Three disasters is a curse.

After winter break, I found a liter of Dr. Pepper, buried in the back of the fridge, a forgotten remnant of my birthday party. It was like discovering I had twenty bucks in my back pocket. With a little too much glee, I grabbed the bottle and opened it. And squeezed it. Plastic must be flimsier than it used to be, because my little love squeeze caused Old Faithful to erupt. This time Dr. Pepper rained all over my clothes and leather boots (it came out – no worries mom!) Hence, Disaster Number Three.

Three disasters is a curse. Four disasters must mean this is a plague that I will pass on to my children and can only be stopped by magic or a really good horoscope.

This week I bought another liter.

I should have known.

After getting the groceries out of the car, I was so excited; I ditched the cup and went straight for the bottle.

I don’t even know how it happened. But the second I unscrewed the lid, there was an explosion. A lateral 3 foot spray of soda fizzed like fireworks. The only sensible reaction was to scream. So I did. It helped. And once again, the counter was sticky. And so was the floor. And the wall. And my face. I commenced to do my previously arranged visiting teaching as a very sticky, but tasty, girl.

By now, I’ve learned my lesson. It took Michael Jordan a really low batting average, and Shaq a couple really bad CD’s for them to get the hint. So after a thief, a meteor shower, and two eruptions, it is finally clear Dr. Pepper just isn’t my thing.

I think I’ll just stick to juice.

A useful transitive property, I'd say

2009-02-12T22:04:00.000-08:00

Food for thought:

The holiday season is Thanksgiving to New Years.
But really, the way we eat, the holiday season is from Halloween to Valentine's Day.
And if we're at Valentine's Day we're almost at Easter.
And if we're at Easter we're practically at the Fourth of July.
So that would make holiday season all year.

Calories don't count during the holidays.
Does this mean calories don't count all year?

O.P.T.I.M.I.S.M.

2009-01-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

Right now, January 5, 2009, 7:58 a.m. MST, it is 9 degrees outside. NINE. However, the meteorologists tell me it feels like negative 2 degrees. NEGATIVE TWO.
So in an effort to forget that my ears are purple, here are five good things about the cold:
1. Outfit repeating becomes socially acceptable. Or at least less identifiable.
2. I get to discover secret passages that are “warmer longer” and take me through the scary chemistry filled hallways of the Benson building where everyone wears giant goggles and sniffs test tubes.
3. My abnormally slow walking speed has increased tenfold so now I’m at the pace of a regular person.
4. This icicle:

5. There’s ALWAYS something to talk about. (coldness=camaraderie)
a. “Hi, I don’t know you but aren’t you freezing?”
b. “Hi, we’ve reached an awkward part of our conversation, and I don’t really know what else to say so . . . gosh it’s cold isn’t it??”
c. “Hi, I do know you, and even though I’ve belabored the point, I would really like you to understand that I’d probably be warmer if you locked me in the refrigerator.”

This is Sylvia Plath:

She wrote The Bell Jar.
She also stuck her head in the oven to kill herself.
“Do you think that maybe Sylvia Plath wasn’t crazy . . . she was just cold?”
-Lorelei Gilmore

oh britney*

2008-12-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

According to Wikipedia, “Hit Me Baby One More Time” came out in 1998. That would make this year the 10 year anniversary of Britney Spears’ debut into pop culture. Let’s consider it appropriately celebrated by the release of “Womanizer”.

Confession: I LIKE this song. I do. I tried fighting it. But now I get chills every time I hear it. I just listened to it three times in a row.

Womanizer, womanizer, woman womanizer, womanizer . . .

For those of you who don’t read tabloid headlines while checking out at the grocery store, here’s a summary of Britney highlights of the last ten years:
• Britney releases “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” 10 years later, 70% of population still wondering what this phrase means, 30% know and won’t tell.
• Britney dates and dumps Justin Timberlake. She didn’t like his gorilla pad. Oh wait, I mean brillo pad.
• Britney gets a valuable diamond from the bottom of the ocean.
• Britney gets married in Vegas. Britney gets annulled in Vegas.
• Britney dances with a python.
• Britney kisses Madonna.
• Britney marries K-Fed. Has 2 kids. Does not put them in car seats.
• Britney learns that her head is not very round. Because she shaves it.

So happy anniversary. Here’s to 10 years of making me dance in front of the mirror.
Even if I am slightly ashamed to admit it.

*I REFUSE to make the title of this post a play on words from a britney spears song. But if i were going to do that I would probably use one of these stellar titles:

-email my heart
-soda pop
-not a girl, not yet a woman
-bombastic (10 bucks says she doesn't know what this word means)
or of course...
oops, i did it again
-

lizard psychology

2008-10-25T11:50:00.001-07:00

This is Norm. Squint, you can see him.

This is Norm's penthouse.

He resides in our living room.

For those of you who don’t know how Norm came to us, let me tell you. Norm, the lizard, came in the mail. U.S. Postal Service to be exact. It’s a miracle really.

Norm faked his own death twice this week.

I don’t have the most affection for Norm but I thought I’d check on him one morning. He was sprawled against the glass, eyes closed, slightly blue. Dang. The sight of the dead lizard was upsetting so I turned his bowl around to eat my Cranberry Almond Crunch in peace. When I went back over Norm had changed position (although still sprawled, shut-eyed, and blue). So he wasn’t dead after all.
The next day, Sierra texted me to say that Norm was dead for sure this time. The roommates shook his house, poured water on him, and did many other obnoxious things to verify it. But once again, Norm deceived us, came alive and crawled on a branch.

I don’t understand Norm.

Here are my theories,

Norm:
a. really is nearing death and these are just signs of illness. Or of hunger because we haven’t fed him in awhile.
b. hates us because he’d rather be named Dragon Slayer.
c. is actually a girl. And tired of his/her plastic wrap ceiling. Wants to call Hillary Clinton.
d. was awake when we watched Count of Monte Cristo and learned that faking your own death is a sure way out of captivity.
e.is haunting us with his ghost when he leaves consciousness. This explains why food randomly goes missing from the freezer.

So who knows if the days of Norm are numbered or not. But one thing’s for sure, cats aren’t the only ones with nine lives.

The Wal-Mart Problem

2008-10-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE food. I want to marry it. My love for food is maybe only challenged by my love for Harry Potter and/or listening to Disturbia on the way to school. So naturally, I love the place where all food comes from: the grocery store. The average American consumer probably doesn’t enjoy going to the grocery store, but for me it is a pilgrimage to the Mecca of all things edible. There are aisles of possibility at the grocery store.
So much to my dismay, I was peer pressured into grocery shopping with my roommates at Wal-mart. I hate Wal-Mart. Besides the unusually high ceilings and the pervading sense of gray, I have strange feeling that every time I walk through those automatic doors I am contributing to some corporate conspiracy that is taking over small businesses worldwide.
Obviously, the only way to combat this spoiled shopping experience was to be decidedly grumpy the whole time. It worked for quite a while: all through the produce section (too many peaches, too little apples) and into the bread aisle (no wheat to be found). But then . . . I saw it. Post Select Cranberry Almond Crunch. The best thing that ever came in a box. There it was, the gem of all cereals, for the very low price of $2.78. Normally it was in the exorbitant range of $4.99, but, here, the miracles of capitalism brought this joy into the range of my college budget.
It was a dilemma indeed. Because I still hate Wal-mart. I do. But in that moment I had to resist the urge to run gleefully to check out with a cart full of Cranberry Almond Crunch. So, folks, we have a Wal-Mart problem. Is it cheap prices and bowls full of cereal . . . or gray, oddly echo-y, crowded, and monopolizing? The jury’s still out.

Silver Linings

2008-09-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

After a bit of a nearly-quarter-life crisis, it has been my goal to become an inherent optimist.

My new philosophy of life was partially cemented by an episode of Friends, where a little girl played by Dakota Fanning frankly reminds an unhappy Ross that “whiners are wieners”. Yes, it came from a Friends episode, I know, but still, the principle is true (and the phrase is catchy).

With this new goal I’ve noticed that the world is a beautiful shade of silver. Not gray. Silver. The phenomenon of cause-and-effect has shown that even the most disastrous causes can prove to have angelic effects. My sister (go Beck) recently noted how Hurricane Ike, despite the troubles, is giving the Church some spotlight. Not finding a job I wanted allowed me to change my major to something exciting. My window doesn’t have a screen, but at least now I can launch projectiles onto unaware passersby.

Life is good. Maybe even metallic-ly so.

2 Nephi 10:20

The Rules of Unneccessary Freak-Outs

2008-08-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

Since our friend Tropical Storm Edouard completely ruined my beach plans, I am left to sit here in my living room, complain about a blister, and ponder the human tendency to FREAK OUT. Good old Edouard has reminded me of another tropical acquaintance I once had, Hurricane Rita, circa 2005. Rita showed me what happens when the world freaks out. For those of you who may not be familiar with that yet, this is what happens: People wait in a 2 mile long line to get a tank of gas, pay $20 for bottled water, and wait in traffic moving at the pace of 2 feet/min. All in all, most of this turned out to be completely unnecessary. The hurricane proved not even strong enough to propel my brother’s skateboard-kite hybrid and all those who ended up stranded on I-45, with no gas, felt like suckers for missing a 6 day vacation. Granted, Hurricane Katrina had just happened so nerves were a little on edge, but then again New Orleans’ peripheral looks like a contact lens. So anyway, this left me with my first rule of freaking out:

Freaking out when a hurricane is coming and you live in a bowl: OK

Freaking out when a hurricane is coming and you live on a cookie sheet: not OK

Moving on to example 2 of the freak out instinct. This morning during my scholarly scour of the Houston Chronicle, I came across a peculiar showcase of human nature, “145 Die in Northern India During Stampede at Shrine.” My first thought: Whoa. I guess those cows aren’t so sacred after all. But upon further examination, I realized this was not a stampede of cows or other such quadrupeds, but of HUMANS. A HUMAN stampede killed 145 people. That’s 29 basketball teams, or 20 mini vans, or 5 classrooms of kids, or in other words a LOT of people. Apparently, a rumor quickly spread that there was a landslide so the Hindus visiting this shrine (located on a cliff) went completely berserk. People were pushed off the edge and/or trampled resulting in the deaths of mostly women and children. (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5922320.html or for a similar story see Alma 30:59) But in the end, the only avalanche was the one of panicked pilgrims trying to run away. It’s shocking to think this many people died because of . . . nothingness really. So here’s rule 2 of freaking out:

Freaking out when you may trample small Indian children: not OK

Freaking out when you may trample apostates named Korihor: OK

All this caused me to reflect on freaking out in my personal life. Apparently, it’s something I do often. However, I feel my occasional hyper ventilations are very often deserved (i.e. anytime I’ve had to go ice skating) and in the end, when I realize the problem was nowhere near as big as I made it to be, it was much easier to deal with (except for ice skating, that’s still a big problem). So I suppose hear is my final rule of freaking out:

Freaking out when it results in death, destruction, carnage, chaos, paranoia, etc: not OK

Freaking out when it results in anything else but the previously mentioned problems: OK!!!

Or at least in my personal, prone-to-freak-out, opinion :)

just a thizzle my nizzle: an only slightly hypocritical essay on pop culture

2008-07-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

I, very unoriginally, have an obsession with black people. Especially the thug/life-50 cent type. The affinity for the Afro crowd is so cliché I almost considered giving it up at one point. But this phenomenon spreading through white middle class suburbia is hard to resist. For some reason, me and my peers are always trying to one up each other on our street cred (of which we really have none) and become more like our brothaz [sic]. It’s all fun and games when we jam Young Jeezy and strive to use “gat” in regular conversation, but I’m beginning to think this perceived cultural appreciation is simply racism in modern form.

Even now, I’m not sure what is that intrigues me exactly, but I can trace my slighted obsession back to the day I left Houston, TX. Absence makes the heart grow fonder: a truth I learned while immersed in white bread Thousand Oaks, CA. My love became absolute when I announced at a Young Women’s sleepover that I “really liked black people” and then the super cool Mia Maids delivered an issue of Slam magazine to my house. Moving back to Houston I went to a school with a 30% minority population, at least according to shoddy yearbook facts (they also claimed we only had 200 Asians . . . right . . .) I learned true R.E.S.P.E.C.T. when I got shoved by a shorty in the hallway for moving too slow. I learned there was one corner of the courtyard you just didn’t stand in unless you wanted to get doghoused (definition still unknown). What I never learned, however, was whether these people created the stereotypes or the stereotypes created them. It was hard for me to think anything but the former, when girls like Ufoma and Shameeqwa* wore their “apple bottom jeans and the boots with the fur” to class and made consistent C’s.

Enter Marti, a fellow coworker during my summer of temporary employment. Marti was an older black lady who liked to talk. She started her life story by relating to me how she’d been on food stamps, was currently on disability pay from the government, and had no husband. Just as my eyes started to glaze over, thinking that I’d heard this sob story before and it probably had something to do with the giant sitting in the room named Race, Marti’s story took a different toll. She had a college degree, was a Republican (gasp), liked to read Greek philosophy, and had previously been an international government employee until congestive heart failure and a run-out husband (who was white) left her broke. Marti started talking about how disappointed she was in her daughter: a musical genius, soccer star, and young mom who was throwing it all away to make it as a rapper. She wished her daughter would stop speaking “ebonics” and start speaking English. And this got me thinking. Maybe I’d got that chicken—and—egg situation mixed up after all. Maybe the stereotypes were creating the people. It’s not so hard to believe, since every time I turn on the radio I am reminded that “shorty wants a thug” or that it’s normal to “bag you like some groceries” (ew, seriously, who gets away with saying that? Answer: Young Jeezy, who is one of my least fav people ever). I can only imagine that some of my fellow classmates at Klein High were acting the way they had been indoctrinated to, through what they voraciously defended as their “culture”.

So here’s my point: kudos to all those who use rap as an art form and not as a way to capitalize off an already downtrodden ethnicity. Because ever so quickly the “culture” of thugs, drugs, and ho’s is finding its way into white mainstream America where it may permanently settle down. Can’t we embrace the culture that is actually culture? Like, I’m thinking, Diana Ross, Langston Hughes (my favorite poet to date, which is only partially due to the fact that his poems are short), Miles Davis, Scott Joplin, and even Talib Kweli (a cut above the rest of the rappers, in my opinion)?

In the words of my aforementioned favorite poet:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America

*names have NOT been changed