Why You Should Hang At My Place On Friday Nights

Not everyone can be me. I know, tragic, right? But trust me, only I can be me. The rest of you just mess it up and make me look bad, so stop, okay?

And here's the biggest reason you cannot be me: You don't have the music collection I do. You think you have my musical tastes pegged, and then BAM - "random" pulls up a song you haven't thought about in years that you can't help singing your little heart out to. And it keeps surprising you in happy ways, over and over and over. (And over.)

Also: I get way, way too excited about those blood pressure checking machines that they have in grocery stores. [The two are completely unrelated. I think.]

Be A Hero?

I was innocently eating my calzone for lunch in the Cougareat when my wandering eye spotted the little plastic centerpiece filled with ads. I spun it around and the side nearest me stopped on a yellow flier advertising the Care To Give campaign, the annual fundraiser asking people to give money to BYU. Asking STUDENTS to give money to BYU. Asking students to sacrifice money they don't really have to an institution they're already giving most of their money to anyway. Where does all the money go? Certainly not to the professors, they'll vouch for that.

So where does it go? To BYUSA, the student government-type thing we have here on campus. What they actually do with the money, I'm not quite sure, but it's nothing furthering the actual students. It's a corrupt, politicking organization, pointless in its agenda, ruling the other student organizations with an obnoxious double standard. Recently a BYUSA employee was given the axe because he wrote a letter to the editor in the campus newspaper, asking for a change in BYUSA policy. They tried to get him to sign a waiver requiring him to keep silent about the reasons he was fired, but he wouldn't. I talked to several other students who work for or with BYUSA, and they all say the same thing: the administrators have short fuses and they love to drop the f-bomb when something goes wrong, they strut around like they own the place, and they refuse to listen to alternative ideas - what they say goes, apparently.

What an amazingly Christian way to run something. They kick candidates out of the student government races because of arbitrary, petty reasons, finding fault with almost everything, and making "student choice" a chimerical idea indeed, they fight amongst each other, and they berate those who would see their school become a place for free thinking and intellectualism. I certainly don't want to support an organization like this. And I won't.

Be a hero? Keep your five bucks. Or go give it to Todd Hendricks, who actually had the wild notion that he could make a difference.

Scrub Scrub Scrub

Tonight I spent an hour scrubbing the grout on the shower ceiling because its dirtiness was overpowering me, and I felt that I'd never be able to enjoy a shower again as long as the discolored tile was staring back at me from above.

And no, this is not the weighty post I mentioned yesterday, though I wish it were. Willingly spending an evening scraping away at grout is a sign of a much, much deeper, sadder issue than I even want to acknowledge here right now.

P.S. Don't ask me what I found in the drain.

Zip It

I'm working on a post, but it's rather weighty, so while I'm finishing that one, I figured I'd just tell you guys about what Jennifer Merkley got me for my birthday.

She handed me a gift bag, and when I looked in, I saw a pile of...something. My first thought was "bungee cords?" Then Jennifer instructed me to pull the pile out, find the zipper, and start zipping.

And so I did. And I watched as it turned into...a bag! A bag that unzips into a pile of nothing! Hooray for technology and zippers!

[This does not mean that the rest of the presents I got were bad and I hated them. Quite the opposite, actually; I loved each and every one of my gifts this year, and I'm really quite touched and amazed and humbled, but only one zipped into something]

The Birthday Party

I promise: This year, no FBI involvement.

Conspiracy Theory

Gmail has formed a secret alliance with iTunes.

Maybe.

But it gets rather suspicious when a file I KNOW is a wmp file on my computer gets magically converted into an m4a when sent through my Gmail account. To a person who does not run iTunes and keeps all Apple products miles away from any of his stuff.

Maybe We Were Made, We Were Made For Each Other

I didn't realize until recently just HOW unhappy being in Utah made me. Sure, I knew that I was homesick a lot, and I missed my friends who weren't in the Provo area, and I talked about what a sad, strange little place Happy Valley is, but I never had anything to make a comparison with.

I never noticed that I was slowly dying, starving to death under a weight of unhappiness. You think I'm exaggerating, or being melodramatic. Look at this, though: when I came to BYU, I weighed somewhere around 125 pounds. When I went home this summer, my weight had dropped to 105, and probably sometimes below that. I spent two years not eating, and it slowly stripped the weight from my bones. Sure, there were other factors. I can't eat when I'm stressed, and finals week is a stressing season. I can't eat when I'm emotionally traumatized, and there were some pretty traumatic events over the last two years. But what about the times that I wasn't stressing or traumatized? I didn't realize it just like the way you don't realize how dingy your favorite white t-shirt has become until you hold it up against a brand-new sparkling white t-shirt. Then you feel your cheeks grow hot as you wonder why people weren't laughing at you for wearing that old, grey rag.

I've gained weight this last week, I can feel it. I'm hungry for food again, suddenly, in a way I haven't been in years. I'm getting out of this place, and I'm finally rid of that undercurrent of unhappiness that was choking me.

Maybe you still think I'm exaggerating, that I'm blowing things out of proportion and making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe you're perfectly happy here, and you generally are no matter where you go. You say that it's not the place, it's what you make of it, and that I was prejudiced against this foreign place with its high walls of rock and its strange, scrubby landscape. The truth is, I've tried being happy here, but I'm not one of those people who can just be happy anywhere. I have a very definite sense of home and of fitting. It's not some misguided pride that keeps me aloof and half-starved, it's a very real feeling of alterity that bends me until I turn back again, back to where I came from, back to where I fit, naturally, unquestionably, seamlessly.

And it's not a matter of loving some people more or some people less. No matter where I go, I will always miss people, and miss them deeply. But if the choice is left up to me where to go, I know a perfect little green valley and a perfect little house with a perfect leather couch. And maybe Keely will be my roommate and Mike will be Art's roommate, and it will be so fitting, all of us together. I'm going to go eat another slice of pizza now and think about it all.

St. George Sunshine

Friday afternoon, I came home from classes and was messing around a little on my computer. I happened to check my e-mail, and I'm glad I did, because a friend of mine had sent me an email around 1:30 that morning with very specific instructions regarding a spontaneous roadtrip we would be going on that weekend.

My first thought was "I am getting OUT OF PROVO!!!!!"

And then I threw a blank CD in my computer, pulled up a playlist I liked, and burned a couple mix CDs for the roadtrip, one entitled Pre-Springbreak Roadtrip Mix 1, and the other St. George Sunshine. Ya gotta have good music to listen to in the car. Plus, I was following the e-mailed instructions verbatim.

Our departure time kept getting delayed, but eventually we headed out, our bookbags stuffed with clothes and books slung over our shoulders, and a whole mess of junk food sitting in a plastic bag in the backseat of the car. I even managed to figure out the CD player (trust me, it was a lot more complicated than you'd expect, for reasons I won't go into here), and we headed down the dark roads towards southern Utah. And thank goodness they were dark, because the scenery ain't pretty.

We got to the uber-fancy rich doctor resort condo pretty late and I met the other people, and I think maybe we put a movie in? I dunno, I don't remember, all I remember was being exhausted and finding my bed and squirming in pleasure at the extreme softness of it. You guys don't even know. I don't know what it was stuffed with, but I think it was angles and rainbows, and there was a soft soft (very soft) green bedspread thing. It was oh so warm. And oh so soft. And oh so much better than the terrible, hard, squeaky mattresses here that I'm convinced are giving me back pains.

I slept until about 1, and woke up to the strains of the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack coming from the living room, so I strolled in and flopped on one of the delicious leather couches. Then I had oatmeal. With strawberries. And I wasted the day just being lazy. We played tennis (I am a pro), we sunned ourselves, we watched movies, we ate chinese food, we gobbled up more junk food, we lazed about even more.... It was bliss. That's how Saturdays are supposed to feel. That night, some people took off for a party in Las Vegas, but I really hate Las Vegas, and I was tired, so I stayed behind. I got my palm read, which was exciting. Eventually, we put The Best of Will Ferrell on, and somehow I ended up falling asleep on the floor. That was a big shame, because, as you'll remember, my bed was so so soft. But ah well. I woke up around 11:30 the next day (I know, I slept on the floor a long long time without realizing how stupid I was) and began throwing away all of our trash. And man, had we made a mess. I don't even know how it happened, we're normally such neat people.

Eventually we got our act together and made it to the car for the drive home. It rained a lot on the way home, and I noticed that the rain collecting on the windshield and the windows was brown and murky. That's Utah for you, even the rain is gross and wrong. I got a picture of the mess it left after it'd dried.


And that was my roadtrip weekend.

What Crazy Things Will These Bloggers Think Of Next?

Before I get to telling you about this weekend's roadtrip, I have some important business to take care of: That's right, Jerilyn tagged me.

Five Movies You Can Watch Over and Over:
1. Mulan
2. The Last of the Mohicans
3. The Hours
4. Dan Dies
5. Unbreakable


Five Embarrassing Songs that You Know All the Words To:
1. "Shot Through the Heart," Bon Jovi
2. "Genie in a Bottle," Christina Aguilera
3. "Perfect," Simple Plan
4. "Survivor," Destiny's Child
5. "No Diggity," Blackstreet


Five Memorable Halloween Costumes:
1. pumpkin, age 5
2. crayon, age 6
3. fairy princess, age 8
4. Queen of Sheba, age 14
5. Princess Peach, age 18


Five Celebrities You Believe May Secretly be Alien:
1. Posh Spice
2. Tom Cruise
3. Ellen Pompeo
4. Anna Nicole Smith
5. Steve Tyler


Five Occupations that You Know You Could Never Do:
1. Pest control (Killing spiders? Not gonna happen.)
2. Prostitution (I hope this one is self-explanatory.)
3. Professional solo violinist (I hated performing. HATED.)
4. Stand-up comedian (I'm the least funny person you will ever meet in your entire life, except once in a while I get funny on accident.)
5. Professional chess player (I never had the patience to learn the game.)


Five Books You've Recently Read Outside of Schoolwork:
1. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
3. Watership Down
4. The Last Unicorn
5. The Lovely Bones


Five Ways to Perfectly Spend an Afternoon:
1. reading with the window open and a warm breeze blowing in
2. napping on a sunny patch of grass
3. playing frisbee
4. wakeboarding
5. spooning with a good movie on


Five Lines You Blatantly Stole From a Movie, TV, a Commercial, or Song:
1. "My life has become a boring pop song, and everyone's singing along" -"I'm Ready," Jack's Mannequin
2. "I know your tricks and your manners" -"Our Mutual Friend"
3. "Alas, poor Yorick." -"Hamlet"
4. "It's all about the Hamiltons, baby" -"Lazy Sunday"
5. "I've got my finger on the trigger and you're in my way" -"Bouncing Off the Walls," Sugarcult


Not Your 5 Favorite Foods, But the 5 You're Most Likely Eating:
1. mac & cheese
2. chocolate pudding
3. Special K cereal
4. tomato soup
5. grilled cheese


Five People Who Must Immediately Respond:
1. Mooney, because I don't hate him and never have
2. Jacob
3. Aaron, it's time for a new post
4. Rachael
5. Dallan, and maybe he'll show me his top-secret blog

Read The Entry Carefully And You'll Find A Surprise Announcement!

I watched Supersize Me today and learned that fast food is pretty much the worst ever. It doesn't really affect me, though, because how often do I ever, EVER eat out? Yeah, exactly.

But I'm drinking a Sprite right now as I type this. I NEVER drink carbonated beverages. Well, rarely. (I've been known to make exceptions, especially on accident.) But on today of all days, when I witnessed some guy's liver turn to pâté because of the evils of high fructose corn syrup and fry grease, I'm sitting here, happily drinking a Sprite.

My only explanation is that the stress is beginning to get to me. I'm cracking under the pressure, clearly, and I don't know how long it will be before I try heroin. You see, for most people, marijuana or sniffing glue are gateway drugs (I'm assuming; that's what they taught us in high school health class, but I'm remembering now that most of what they taught us in high school was a pack of lies...like those lies they kept repeating about gravity and 9.8 m/s² and how you're never supposed to split an infinitive, well I KNOW BETTER NOW MRS. SMALLWOOD. Anyway, all I'm saying is, I have no idea what a "gateway" drug really is, but let's just pretend that marijuana and Elmer's are, okay?), but I'm not most people. As you probably noticed while reading my parenthetical above. Since simple, non-drowsy Claritin has the power to knock me out for 24 hours, I'm guessing that Sprite will lead directly to dark alleys and hypodermic needles. I'm guessing. Which is why I'm putting the can down now, half-finished; well, and also because there's no way my stomach will eb able to hold any more of the stuff.

[What I love the most about this entry is how, even though you've never read any of my poetry, you can see exactly why my professor would have had occasion to refer to me as "Plath-esque." See? Stress is bad. Moving 2,000 miles is a bad bad idea. But I'm going to do it anyway.]

Beautifully Smug

I don't post poetry on my blog. Do you know why? Because 14-year-old girls post poetry on their blogs, and I am not a 14-year-old girl. (I've had a rather convincing argument made that I'm a 12-year-old girl, but 12 is not 14, so we can ignore that.)

So don't expect me to EVER post ANY poetry here. Ew. What I WILL do for you, is tell you what my poetry professor called me tonight: Plath-esque.

Yes, that's right, he told me I was "Plath-esque." As in Sylvia Plath. As in stuck-her-head-in-an-oven Sylvia Plath. But she's a fabulous poet. So I shouldn't be too worried, right? And besides, he was only responding to a few lines, not to my general demeanor. Also: Sylvia Plath wasn't always dark and deeply depressing; go through her stuff sometime, a lot of it doesn't even touch those yew-paths.

I know I'm justifying. Maybe I'll just stay away from ovens for a while?

A Welcome Back Letter Of Sorts

Jeremy Brown got home on Thursday. Yeah, it's true: two years are already up. Saturday afternoon I got a text from Jennifer letting me know there was a letter from him to me sitting in our apartment, but alas, no letter from him to her. Yikes, Jeremy, I thought. Yikes indeed.

Anyway, the kid is back from Brazil, and Jennifer and I are trying to get in contact with him. By which I mean Jennifer has been diligently attempting to call (but encountering major hurdles such as not having a correct number) while I sit back and grumble about how he's not online and "What, has he forgotten how to work the internet?" and call him a Jerky McJerkerson. That, my friends, is how I get in contact with old friends. It's not exactly a winning strategy, but it's fun for me.

See, the thing is, Jeremy was (and is...I have to remember to stop referring to him in the past tense)(I always treat missionaries like they've died for some reason, hence my use of past tense) a really great friend. He tolerated my silliness and we had some really great times staying up late and chatting. I'm definitely not the girl I was three years ago, and I doubt he's the guy he was, so it'll be a weird adaptation, but it'll be fun to hear his stories.

All this, of course, is avoiding confronting the fact that, now that he is back, I will have to honor our deal and sit through Arachnophobia -- yeah, remember how I deal with even very small spiders? I am going to die.

True Confessions

I'd rather lay on my bed and watch a movie than get out a textbook and make an outline on some dry, dead philosopher.

Shocking, I know.

200 kb/s = Very Yes

Do you know what would be nice? If I could remember the username and password we used for our router page. I don't even remember actually inputting a username or password, that's how screwed I am.

No router configurating for me, it looks like. Maybe one of these days I'll call up our ISP and beg for help and have them laugh at me but fix everything. It's the laughter I cannot bear.

Mom, Dad, Stop Reading Right Here

It's only hour thirty-seven, and already the hallucinations have begun. You see, I've been awake for thirty-seven hours straight so far, and that number is only going to go up as the night continues and the day follows after that.

Don't be too worried, it's a little tradition of mine. My university doesn't like to give us a spring break, which was all well and good on some level, because I understand they run a very tight ship scheduling-wise and just can't fit a week in their winter semester AND have a spring term AND have a summer term AND have a fall semester AND make room for a week-long convention that shuts down the campus (for a week, duh) over the summer. I get it. But I'm no longer buying that particular excuse for some reasons I won't go into now (my attention is already wandering away). My point is this: I am taking my OWN spring break, BYU! Ha! How d'you like that!

But I'm not enough of a rebel to cut classes too (my education is important to me). So I stay up all night, go to class the next day, come home and chill, stay up all night, etc. etc. This has been going on all week, but I've been managing to snag a couple hours' sleep a night at least. But no more! I am experimenting, you see.

The results of the experiment so far: 1. I look like I've died. My skin is pale, there are dark rings under my eyes and my face is subtlely misshappen in some way that it's recongizable as my own, but it's discernibly different. 2. My inhibitions are sleeping. I mean slipping, haha, weird. 3. Drastically lowered attention span. 4. Keys seem to move around on the keyboard and trick me from time to time.

It's only going to get more interesting from here. Haha, so THIS is what it feels like not to be able to form a cohesive thought.

P.S. I experimented and my vocabulary apparently is still fully-functioning. I'll let you know when that slips, because when it does, oh, it's bad.

I'm Branching Out, But It Doesn't Mean I'm Willing To Try Cucumbers

I don't really like change. I get comfortable where I am (and believe me, I design my reality to be the best of the best, so it's not like I'm settling into this comfort, it's like I've reached the tallest summit of Kilimanjaro and I'm sitting down on my pack, wrapped in the comfort of my thoughts and my achievements), and I don't really care to change anything. I like routine and trusting in the consistency of it. That's why I was sad when Kraft changed the formula of their mac & cheese and it became no longer edible. I'd had that stuff my whole life, and wham!, gone. I adapted, though, and went for Wal-Mart brand, since it's cheap, since I shop at Wal-Mart, and since Food Lion is nowhere to be found 'round these parts.

That said, the other day I was forced to choose between Kraft and an unknown, untested brand. It was different, and I had no idea how it would work, but the Kraft would choke me and kill me dead, so I bought the other stuff.

I'm not dead yet. In fact, I'm kind of enjoying the new stuff.

Putting It In Perspective

I just ate a chocolate chip cookie I found in my living room.

What I Wish That Statement Really Meant:

I wandered out into my living room late one night and found a cookie randomly sitting there. "Hey, cookie!" I thought, and I picked it up and started eating it. I mean, who finds unmarked cookies in their living room, having suddenly appeared like some sort of oasis out of nowhere.

What That Statement Really Meant:

Family Home Evening was at our apartment tonight, and someone brought chocolate chip cookies for the treat. After they were done, they left the bag on our coffee table for me to find.

What Really Matters About All Of This:

Free chocolate chip cookie for me.

Confronting One's Worst Fear And Running Away From It

Hello, all.

If we were having a conversation on the internet, this is probably how it would go:

You: hey
Me: !!
You: ?
Me: i forgot to tell you something really, really important, holy cow

Because we all know that capitalization is for wussies when it comes to instant messaging. That's right, wussies. And Dallan Bunce.

Anyway, dear friends, !! I forgot to tell you something really, really important, but I'm going to do it now.

The other night, I was chatting with someone while doing homework when I noticed that a spider was crawling on the bedroom ceiling. I didn't panic just then, because it was over on my roommate's side of the room, and as great of a roommate as she is, I'm not touching a spider for her; she'll just have to deal with being eaten and killed in the middle of the night, oh well. After a while it disappeared and I forgot about it, amazingly.

My roommate came home then and we chilled and did whatever, and then I noticed that the spider was crawling on her shelf, so she got some paper towel or something and picked it up to carry it outside and let it go (because she's crazy and doesn't realize that spiders are not things whose lives we should seek to preserve, especially not when they've shown an inclination for coming inside my dwelling place). As she got out in the hallway I heard an "Uh oh." Those are two words you do NOT want to hear when someone is carrying one of your worst fears in their cupped and deranged hands to get it out of your life forever. Trust me, the "Uh oh" is never good.

Well, turns out sh'd dropped the thing, or it leaped out of her hands to come after me, or something; it doesn't really matter what exactly happened, the important thing is, there was a spider loose in the apartment and I DID NOT KNOW WHERE IT WAS.

I didn't panic, though. I have no idea how that happened, but I kept my cool and didn't immediately move to a different state (preferably to Art's who (at least used to) keep the house spider-free to encourge visits).

I DID panic later, though, when I glanced to my right and noticed the spider CRAWLING ON MY BED. What if I hadn't noticed? What if I had switched off the light and gotten into bed with THAT bedfellow? I would have died. I would simply have ended things right then and there if a spider had been in my bed with me, because the 0.3 seconds we spent ON the same bed were almost too much to handle.

I made the roommate kill it that time. I wasn't going to risk any more "Uh oh"s.

Giiiih.

It's Kind Of Like A Tale Of Two Cities

So the week is drawing to a close, and it's been an interesting mixture of ups and downs. (Ha! Thought I was going to go for the rhyme-producing "highs and lows, didn't you? This just goes to show that you can't predict me, sucka!) (I have no idea what that was about, actually. I told you it's been an interesting week, and you all know "interesting" is code either for "ugly" or "crazy-like," and since weeks can't really be physically ugly....)

I made some good headway in the pile of homework I have, and I managed to impress a couple professors. But I can't remember if I remembered tog to orchetra rehearsal or not, or if we even had rehearsal scheduled for this week.

I got to spend a lot of time talking with an old, dear friend of mine and doing "us" things we hadn't done in a while. But my friend is around because he's going through a worse week than I am, and I spend a lot of time worrying.

I had a lot of fun this weekend with different groups of friends. But there are a lot of friends out there I don't know if I'll ever see again, and that realization has been driven home to me a lot lately, and it sucks the air out of my lungs almost every time.

My mom IMed me and told me she was working on birthday stuff. But I had to tell her a lot of things I know she doesn't like to talk about and I had to relive memories from this past summer, and I'm not talking about the good ones.

Duke played UNC tonight. But Redick wasn't being Redick, the game was pretty sucky, and Duke lost what they should have won.

I like to say that life isn't about what I want, and I believe that very strongly. While talking with Kristin the other night, it was interesting to watch her realize that though everything she had wanted had fallen through, other things had happened to her through chance and circumstance that made her far happier than she could have picked for herself. That is what life is about. There is no happily-ever-after, at least not in mortality. It's about having someone's hand to hold along the way, through all of the ups and downs, and knowing that there's another side of things just waiting.

At least there's one piece of news that cannot possibly have a downside: Sugarcult is coming out with a new album, expected for release sometime later this summer.

I Don't Have Many Talents, But This Is One Of My Favorites

Kristin and I were both hungry, both bored, and both interested in hanging out, so she came over to my apartment so we could chat for a bit, then we decided to go to Red Robin and get some food.

The wait at red Robin was about forty-five minutes to an hour, so we of course headed out into the mall (the Red Robin in Provo is in the Provoe Towne Centere, or however it's spelled, which is a mall) to go not spend the money we don't have in the first place.

We were a little worried about time, because we didn't want to be stranded at the mall, but we also wanted to eat, and McDonald's really wasn't appealing. We lucked out, though, and after forty-five minutes they called our name, and our waitress was pretty snappy bringing out the plates and plates (and plates!) of food we ordered. Of course we thought the whole production was hilarious and laughed throughout the meal, amazed at all the food we had in front of us. That's just how things go when you're hanging out with Kristin.

We didn't finish all of our food. We knew when we saw how much food was in the appetizers alone that we had no prayer of finishing, not with our burgers still on the way and my milkshake sitting in front of me, etc. etc. etc. I don't think we even TRIED to finish it all; I know I didn't. We got boxes. We ate as much as we could, put our burgers in our boxes, paid our bill, and left.

As we were walking out of the mall, I noticed that I didn't have my box in my hand, which was weird, because I had definitely had it in my hand as we were leaving the restaurant.

Allow me to repeat that: The burger box I had had in my hand only three minutes prior had somehow DISAPPEARED. Vanished. Into thin air. I had nowehre to put it down, and Kristin and I hadn't stopped walking. I KNOW I would have remembered it if I had chucked it across the mall floor or tossed it into a trashcan. I probably would have noticed if someone had jerked it out of my hand and taken off running. I know; I'm just as baffled as you are. How does one lose a hamburger?

Would it be even funnier if I told you that THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED? Almost two years ago, Kristin, Rachael, and I were out at the T.G.I. Friday's back home, and I didn't finish my hamburger, so I had it wrapped up in a box and put it in my car. I went to get out of my car a few minutes later, and the hamburger wasn't there. I didn't leave it in the restaurant, either, I definitely put it IN MY CAR.

I don't know how this happens. I don't know if someone more powerful than I is messing with me, or if I somehow stumble into alternate universes from time to time, or if I'm secretly magical and can make things disappear at will but since I don't have any proper training it's only worked on doggie-bag hamburgers so far. I just don't know.

But Kristin and I laughed pretty hard about the whole thing.

I Miss You, I Guess That I Should

I was looking at the cost of plane tickets tonight. Yeah, not a good plan.

Coming In Like A Lion, Methinks

I got hailed on today as I was walking on to campus for my night class. I got hailed on while wearing a thin jacket, and a thin jacket only. (Well, and pants and a t-shirt, and a bookbag, but those are givens. I assure you.)

It was kind of a pleasant experience, actually, in an odd sort of way. I like interacting with weather, and I was already happy that a thunderstorm had made its crackling way to Utah Valley. I just walked and sort of relished the experience of small hailstones striking my body -- it's not everyday that that happens.

And then I had a good laugh at my appearance when I walked into the bathroom to towel my sopping face off. I must say, if anyone can rock the drowned puppy look, I can, and I can do it with style.