A Lake Story

So yesterday Jason and I planned to escape to a lake in PA and enjoy the heck out of it. We pulled up to what looked like some information center, and when I got out of the car I spied a fenced-in enclosure with some sort of animal inside. I couldn't quite tell what it was, so of course it was all I could think and/or talk about. Once we got inside, we were told that basically we had to be campers/lodgers to enjoy the lake, so we scrawled a big, fat "Screw you!" on the walls (metaphorically; we have great and deep respect for personal property) and left.

We stopped in the general store to buy supplies (some water, pop rocks, and something called a "Charleston Chew," which frightened me greatly) and Jason asked the cashier lady for something awesome to do while I walked around and pretended like I had no idea what was going on. I cannot ask questions like that. I will not ask you for directions. I will not go into your Blockbuster store and ask you to help me locate a movie. I will walk around that store for twenty-seven minutes looking for what I came in there for, and I will never once ask you for help. It is a side to my personal independence that could really stand to be worn down some, but I'll worry about that later. Like when it's a life & death situation.

So anyway, we left, and went to go check out the mysterious animal, and realized it was a goat. (What are those animals there, the ones that look like half cow, half dog?) (That is an inside joke. That is HILARIOUS to me.) And there were more! And they had a playhouse in the trees! Yay, goats. It's going to be a good day when goats are involved.

So we went to a State Park instead, with a creek and a waterfall and a...jiggly bridge thing...and hiking and crawfish and no sunburn, hooray!

And then the day ended at Baja Fresh where I wolfed down a burrito the size of my head that was stuffed with chicken and grilled vegetables and - I don't know, fricking SOUR CREAM, who can say no to sour cream.

Now I'm typing this and listening to the rain outside my open window, tabbing back and forth between this window and looking at pictures of Dallan's escapades in China. I'm not sure what could make this a better weekend.

Sleeping Habits

I need about three naps to get me through my day. Why is this, what is wrong with me, and what can I do to fix it?

I sleep about 7 hours a night, at fairly consistent times. I fall asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. The last thing I'm usually thinking is, Oh, doesn't it feel so nice with my head on the pillow like th- , and I'm out until my body wakes me up at the trained hour.

I dream a lot, and it's always about real life. I sort through stuff in my dreams, process all the emotions I don't have time to feel when I'm awake (I'm pretty busy, and I'm always feeling something or other, so a lot of things just fall by the wayside. Plus, my mantra is "repress, repress, repress," which is entirely healthy, shut up.) Sometimes, and maybe it's more than I realize, the dreams exhaust me. My brain is more alert on waking up, but I'm still, somewhere, tired. Turns out the brain is a little complicated, huh.

I exercise regularly, I try to eat healthily, plenty of vitamins and vegetables. I usually don't even touch caffeine, which makes 2 - 4 p.m. at work soooo hard, but I feel better about myself in the long run.

Maybe the answer is that I'm a wuss. Probably. In fact, I established that a long time ago when Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit proved a little too intense for me.

Or maybe it's just that starting at 6 a.m. a giant mutant cat jumps on my bed and starts pawing at my face for me to wake up and, I don't know, feed him, or clean up his barf, or pet him, or just be awake to witness all his cat antics. Cantics. Whatever it is, he's more pushy than any boy I've ever known, including the one who spent the night outside my bedroom door. But he's also way more soft, so bonus.

Anyway, I need to go take a nap now.

Puke And Pancakes - It Really Is All About The Alliteration

Today I scrubbed up cat puke from the carpet while (while!) somehow managing to make myself a delicious breakfast of hot pancakes. Check out them skills.

And it only leads me to wonder, How am I not married yet? I am the oldest single Mormon in existence. (True fact!) How did a massive conclave of notoriously commitment-happy Mormon boys not scoop me up into their prayerful, obedient clutches?

Then I remembered - I ran screaming from their clutches and into the hermit cave known as Intellect.

But still, I'd make a great candidate for Mom, since I'm pretty sure all you do is clean up puke and fry up dozens and thousands of pancakes. At least by the way they tell things.

Revisionist history starts in the home.

Oh, And I Learned Where Bhutan Is. And What It Is, Too.

I spent my fourth of July getting rained on, sleeping in corners with all my worldly possessions piled about me, running barefoot through the questionable sidewalks of D.C., sampling a petunia and hoping they're not one of those toxic plants while at the same time thinking it would be kinda cool, wishing for more dinosaur-related gore at the IMAX, eating a festively-blue rice krispie treat that was as large as my head (with help) that dyed everything in its wake a brilliant unmistakable shade, sleeping on the Metro, and watching the fireworks obscured by a dense smoke cloud.

Vive Le Quatre Juillet!

This Is How It Works

I am tired of wringing words.

Mid-morning I caught a glimpse of the sun, and then my own pale complexion, so I decided to bring my book outside to partake in the glory of the day. Barefoot on the deck, my skin drank in the warmth and the glow, and I'd brought out some pomegranate juice in a glass bottle, naturally. I think my entire body took a gulping sigh of contentment. Which lasted all of twenty minutes.

In that time, I managed to fling a spider to his spiraling, violent death, so at least I had an accomplishment under my belt when I decided to beat a retreat back inside. Yes, the air was already shimmery hot, and everything looked blue because the sun was so bright - when you close your eyes to it and reopen them, everything takes on a blue tinge, try it - and I was already growing uncomfortable. But more than that was a growing mental disquietude.

I told myself I was taking a break, three minutes tops. I ran upstairs, carefully conscious of how my muscles worked as I bounded up; I cannot escape from my obsessions for very long. Into my room to glance at my computer, and still no response.

I am tired of wringing words.

All thoughts of mid-morning sunshine fled, and I sought for something else to do. My number one rule when facing something of this nature is No Dwelling. If my time is not important to someone else, then I refuse to waste a single moment more thinking about it. I cast about for a What Next. Filtering through my abundant projects, I found nothing that suited me, casting idea after idea aside like thumbing through the garments at Goodwill. There had to be something in there, though, and then came to mind La Follia.

I used to be a musician. I used to spend hours every day at my craft, poring over pages of notes, aching with the thrum of four strings. I wanted to be a concert violinist until I was seventeen, and I realized that I hated performing, so I left that world. At eighteen I played my last concert, and that was when I stopped. But I never stopped wanting to be a musician, wanting to feel the confidence of the notes beneath my fingers.

The miracle of the internet is, that if you look hard enough, you can get what you want, and most times immediately. I wanted to play Corelli's La Follia again, but somewhere in my many moves, I'd lost the music.

YouTube had a performance of it, and I listened, but that wasn't enough. So I googled. And googled some more. And switched up my google searches and honed them and finally found a place to download pdf files of sheet music, and as I printed the pages out, I brought out my stand and tightened my bow and tuned my strings to the a442 that I prefer.

And then I practiced. 45 minutes poring over just two pages of the piece, going over note by note, working until my fingers had the pitches just perfect. That is the joy of the violin, there are a million degrees of a pitch you can sound with just the tiniest variation in finger placement. You strive and strive for just the correct clarity of tone, and often the same not won't be played in the exact same manner a second time, due to chord progression.

And then I was filled, caught, free, held. This is why I make the rule No Dwelling, because nothing in life is worth wasting the time that could be spent on a thousand different pursuits. Go out there and chase the things you love to do. And if you want, come find me and we'll make some music together.

Click Here

I got the weirdest (maybe-)compliment today. Trina saw me sitting at my desk and came by to ask me if I'd been a dancer at one point in my life (as in a ballerina, I see where your mind is going, and I'm going to nip that right in the bud). Well, yes. I was once a ballerina. Until I was eight.

But apparently when I cross my legs, I point my foot like I've had lifelong training. Go me? At least when I'm sitting down I can manage to be graceful. Also when I'm directing minions, but that's a different sort of grace entirely.

Science Lesson

I realize that I shouldn't make fun of her or expose her to embarrassment because she gave me life, blah blah blah, whatever. She had children and raised them in the internet age, she had to expect that something of this sort would happen eventually. So here is what happened in a conversation between my mother and I today.

(First, some backstory. A couple weeks ago we went to the National Art Gallery, and while we were shopping around in the gift store, she came upon a little solar-powered contraption that attached to a window and had a prism dangling from it, so when the sunlight came in, it would turn some internal gears, spinning the prism around, and making rainbows dance all over the room. That device stopped working today, and I could hear little gears trying fruitlessly to turn, so I decided to perform some microsurgery on it and get it working again, to soothe my mother's heartbreak over a lack of spinney rainbows.)

Me (as I'm holding the contraption up to the window, trying to catch some light to see if my work had any effect): No, there's not enough light coming in, I can't tell.

Mom: Do you want me to get a flashlight?

Me: I'm sorry, what?!

Mom: A flashlight.

Me: No. How would a flashlight do me any good?

Mom: Well, I figure light is light.

Me: ...No, Mom. Solar power requires a Sun.

Mom: Are you sure?

Me: Yes.


See, the thing about a flashlight vs. sunlight, is that your standard flashlight is about 3 watts (I googled it), while "the power at noon on the equator is about 1 kW per square meter," leaving room for all sorts of variables to enter in and mess with that figure (I maybe googled that as well, don't judge me). So, while light MAY be light, you know, photons bouncing around, making physicists scratch their heads, because (and they will admit this to you when REALLY pressed) they have NO IDEA what is going on with those little buggers - light may be light, but 3 watts vs. 1,000, or even 500 is kinda a huge difference.

And now you know.

An Update On Work, My Way

Today at work we tried signing into the system with our brand new IDs and passwords, which of course failed miserably, so our trainer was on the phone with IT for a good hour or so. Which left us free to mill about and talk amongst ourselves - !!! I got paid to sit around and chat. This is truly an amazing country.

So of course we spent a good portion of our time coming up with creative ways to kill each other, and in the interest of full disclosure, I probably have the market cornered in original, grisly demises.

Like anyone here is surprised.

I also met some of my soon-to-be team members and introduced myself, and then went skipping (literally) across the production floor, certainly not drawing any attention to myself in my pink, butterfly'd clothing. Basically I own the place already.

Driven

I will just put it out there like this: I really like conversations with people who make me feel like an imbecile. I don't enjoy them, that's not what I said; I like them. Because they are important. And I wish I could have three of them every day.

Because what happens when someone makes me realize, geez, I know so little about x, y, and z, I can't even express a coherent thought concerning the matter, let ALONE an interesting one, is I make darn sure that doesn't happen again. I start reading, hunting, fishing around in my mind, sorting my feelings out, getting the facts straight, and coming to some sort of conclusion. Even if it's just about a pudding flavor, I do the research. The shame is that I usually never have another conversation with that person on that subject x, y, and z, so they never see how much I have learned, and so my pride is never assuaged on that matter. They will probably go for the rest of their lives thinking, Boy, she knew so very, very little. And I HATE that. I want to be considered smart, capable, and well-informed by my peers, because guess what, the whimsical draw of having a favorite color of Bank lollipop, it only goes so far. When I am thirty-seven, people are not going to accept that from me anymore. I'd better be prepared.

It had never occurred to me, really, before tonight, that there is something wrong in having a huge, clumpy group of Big Ideas that are so broad in scope that nothing can be made of them. It's something that you'd better believe I am fixing starting right now, though.

I don't know how anyone has time for baseball games and friends.

I Will Admit It, I Use An Anti-Wrinkle Cream, And I Don't Even Have Wrinkles - Yet

My concept of Zion (Zion, you know, perfect city, no poor, everyone is decent to each other - don't you kids read anymore?) is a place where we don't have to wash our faces every night, stripping them of moisture they naturally produce, because it's bad for our faces, and then religiously reapplying a different, man-made moisture, because our faces need to be moisturized. Is this process not zany to anyone else? And yet, it's not something I've been suckered into. I don't pay ten bucks for a bottle of lotion because some smart advertising firm has decided to sell something I don't need to me. It's completely necessary!

Except my concept of Zion used to be a place that had those divided paper plates, and then I went to a Baptist barbecue with a friend of mine, and there were divided plates there, and the irony struck me pretty hard. Like getting smacked with a two-by-four hard. So maybe I need to think more before I just start theorizing about what Zion will be like when everyone reaches their full awesomeness potential, although divided plates and no need for paying for external moisturizers WOULD make for a pretty rad city.

Ah, human physiology, you truly are the most whimsical of sciences. And here everyone thought it was astronomy, because no one really knows the difference between astronomy and astrology.

I Really Like Those Endorphins

There is definitely something to be said for running after a full, long grueling day, getting a cramp, and then powering through that sucker because, what, is a little bit of wrenching abdominal pain going to slow you down? Not a chance.

It's The Little Things

The corporate world has been robbing me of my creativity and whimsy and, you know, DRIVE - so today I thought I would fight back a little. I'm in my third day of training at a company who shall remain nameless, because I do not think they would hesitate to fire me for expressing an opinion online. And I have a feeling Jamie Dimon might be a bit of a googler. Anyway. So I've been in training for three days, and it's pretty dry stuff. So today we were supposed to fish around on the company "Intranet" (I feel so dumb even typing that word) and, um. Find things? Learn all about "links" and the magic they contain? And we had a scavenger hunt. Way to ruin a perfectly good scavenger hunt with the doldrums of a company intranet. Putting "Scavenger Hunt" at the top of a photocopied worksheet is not going to change it into something exciting that your employees will care about.

So I took some recent legal counsel to heart, and I answered each question with faultlessly vague answers. And I may have at one point implied that the company was not very wise in letting me have all this information so conveniently at my fingertips. Pretty much I treated their worksheet like a Myspace survey; and at the end of the day, I held my head up high.

Rules on Driving

Here are my thoughts on passing on the right: It is completely acceptable, as long as you do it like I do.

I know, I know it's illegal, but sometimes it's also necessary, and so what do you do? Simple. Say you're on a three-lane highway and the person in front of you inexplicably slows down to an unacceptable speed. The lane to your left is completely clogged with fast-paced traffic largely unwilling to make room for you. But the lane to your right is completely open! Too bad passing on the right is illegal. But lane-changing is not.

So before switching lanes, I think to myself, Oh! Right lane! You look pretty good right now. Fierce really. I like that. I think I'll come for a visit. And then I drive on it for a while, passing well ahead of Mr. Slowbeans. And then I think, You know, Right Lane, I liked you much better before. I think our time is up. And I merge back into my original center lane, where I prefer to be. And no illegal acts committed, because of my very deliberate and conscious thought.

And also, why would you be going 45 mph on 495? Do you have a death wish?

I'll Admit It, All Those Fancy Badges Are Kind Of Intimidating

I thought Buena Vista was overrun by police people. I thought it was probably the most overrun by police people locale in the entire history of ever. And then I moved back to Frederick. This place is crawling with cops! I counted and saw five different cars just in the four blocks I walked to a boutique in town in happen to like. Four blocks, five police cars, and still people are allowed to behave like complete tools. I wish that were an arrestable offense.

On a side note, I almost went back to one of the nice police women just to tell her I thought she was really pretty. But then I thought better of it. But really, she was pretty, and she looked way too nice to be wielding a gun and a badge.

Password Frustration

If Sallie Mae wants to make it so difficult for me to make payments to them, then I will stop paying them. And when they contact me to let me know I have an overdue balance, I will tell them that the mirey swamp of their payment system has left me a lost, wandering savage, and they probably should send a search party if they really want my cold, hard cash. Also, they should pay ME for the time I spent on their website, trying to get my dang password to work. I use two passwords very, very consistently. One is for the nice websites that don't require letters and numbers. One is for the skanky websites that demand a combination of both, like someone would be able to guess my password anyway. My alphanumeric password is FAR easier to guess, because I have to be sure I'll remember it. And the pure numeric PIN I had to choose for Sprint, that could not be in any way related to my birth date or Social Security number? I made it a math joke. A math joke that no one down at Sprint headquarters got, even though I had to tell it to half a dozen of their employees to get my account activated.

Anyway, so the password I KNEW was my password wasn't working, so I had to answer all sorts of security questions, and once I ran that guantlet, I got to pick a new password. So I picked the password I always use, and guess what? Couldn't use it. Because you're not allowed to input for the new password whatever your old password had been. Meaning that password I tried inputting five different times, and it kept rejecting me? Yeah, it was my password the whole time, but the ol' whore Sallie Mae just didn't like the way I typed it. I guess.

I am moving to the mountains.

Don't Think I'm Ready To Settle, Though

I was sitting by myself in church yesterday, my mother having scurried away some minutes before to run back home and procure the bag she needed, and the service was winding down, when I found myself with a little visitor.

There was a family with kids sitting a few pews ahead of me, and the little boy, about three or four, wandered back to my pew. He draped his arms over my knees, put his head down on my lap and started playing with the bracelet around my wrist. I just put an arm around him and played with his fuzzy hair and felt my heart melt around my bones.

If the Church really wanted to get us married faster, they wouldn't sequester the single people in small groups together, to get bored and frustrated with the small-minded maneuvering and shallow manipulations of everyone else around them. They'd keep us in family wards to be surrounded by the loud, frustrated wailings of parents and children and those raw, brilliant moments when it all becomes worthwhile.

Goooooo Science!

My mother stole my barometer to hang in the living room, and I don't know if I was more jealous or so, so pleased. I mean, MY barometer should hang out with me, in my room, telling me all sorts of fascinating things about the current pressure and humidity and stuffy bedroom temperature. On the other hand, my mom likes it enough to want to hang it where she can see it, and that's a high five and a half in my book. Plus, I'm tired of living with people who are constantly weirded out by the phallic symbol on my wall, no matter how many times I try to explain.

I Caved, And Other Stories

And now you will always, always know.

The very very first thing I unpacked was my computer. I didn't arrive back in Maryland until about 11:30 p.m., so I didn't bother hauling everything in, but I made sure I had the important stuff, goshdarnit! I also found my sheets and brought those in too, in case I felt like doing a little sleeping at some point.

Who am I kidding? Today was seriously one of the least fun days of my life. I thought I'd gotten so much more done than I actually had, and the problem was that I didn't realize I even had a problem until I got well into packing. It was one of those, "Oh, not much more to do - wait, I still have to do that...and that other thing...and oh yeah, I can't forget to do that" situations. On top of bagging everything up and throwing it down the impossible stairs of my apartment and bending all rules of physics and human anatomy just to get the front door open with my load, I also managed to squeeze time into my day to serve my country.

Alright, maybe I've been overdosing on 24 lately (I have, it's true, but 24 is the drug that WON'T ruin your life and drive all your friends away one by one), but I did do something pretty handy for a friend of mine, who was stuck at school doing a humanitarian project. Stuck was his word, too, so don't even try to start judging me. I went to the school, got some money and his student I.D., then went to Hardee's to grab him some lunch. Our local Hardee's, apparently, gives out student discounts. Ricky's idea would be for me to just sort of wave his I.D. at the cashier with my thumb covering the photo-like, and no one would be any wiser to our scheme. Instead I just told her that I was fetching lunch for a lazy friend (hi, Ricky!), and here was his I.D., and she waved me onward. That's probably the first and last time I'll ever be telling the truth, so I'm glad it worked out so well for me.

Oh, and then a psychotic bumblebee started following me around. I can't even explain, you really just had to be there. Come to think of it, I'm glad you weren't, because hoo boy, was I a girl. Igh. Oh, well.

And now I'm home. And the cat is asleep next to me, and my computer is merrily lighting my dark bedroom with its soothing blue fan lights, and things are just pretty happy for me.

Let's see how the Career Event tomorrow goes.

Buena Vista At Night

How long do you think you can lie awake, staring at the lights glowing up from the town below your window, and contemplate what, exactly, you are supposed to be doing with your life?

How long, I mean, without swearing, crying, or resorting to immature name-calling.

The lights really are peaceful.

Because This Might Embarrass Her

A copy of the letter Bree left on my desktop before she and Kyle left on Spring Break (I offered to babysit their little love ferret):

"Betharoonie-


The Cheetah print key on your desk is the key to Kyle’s house. You know where he lives…

The furry fairy is in the first room at the top of the stairs. He is in the closet. You will see/smell him instantly. Please do not clean up any poopsies or anything. I seriously DO NOT expect you to do that. Just play with him for a bit, let him get some exercise. His food is in the closet too. And just make sure he has water. Like I said, if you miss a day, it is not the end of the world.

Kyle and I seriously appreciate this! You can call my cell if you have any questions…

Love your face off!!


Bree"




Things I Love About This Letter
1. Being addressed as Betharoonie.
2. There seriously is an honest-to-goodness cheetah print key sitting on my desk. It is just too perfect.
3. Poopsies. With the chinchillas it was "EWWWWWWW, POOOOOOOOP, get those monsters away from here, hiyah!" with that last exclamatory being made as we hiked them through the window. Without even waiting to open it. But now, poopsies. So cute.
4. She loves my face off. And there really is no better place for my face to be right now than off. (I may have been so tired I fell asleep without washing off my mascara, and now it may be caking the entire cheekular region of my face. Maybe.)
5. The ferret will probably die under my care.