Still missing you...

My internet and keyboard are not going to work. I don't know how to do it. And I can't really do anything at work. So that is why I've been dismal at posting this month. I'm sorry that this is the case, but I really don't have any other options other than walk to campus and use one of their computer labs and that's only worked out never for various reasons.

My birthday was a perfect day, thanks for asking. The worst thing that happened all day was I went to the bathroom at work and came back to the last half of "Sweet Child Of Mine" on the radio, and we all know how awesome the opening riff of that song is and I missed it. But I persevered and didn't let it ruin my day. Because, while life cannot always be what we'd like, it can still be pretty dang good if we just keep going at it. Especially when you have the world's best boyfriend.

I miss the internet

When I moved my computer into the front room to play music for the Halloween party, something went amiss. Since the day before the Halloween party, I've been unable to connect to the internet and my keyboard doesn't work. I haven't been on facebook, checked anyone's blogs, or did any other sort of general internetting for over a week. It's odd. And now I'm posting from work because our system is down and I can't do much else, even though I'm strictly forbidden to do extracurricular internetting. And because, as fascinating as a post about my bladder infection is, I'm really ready to have something new up here.

I haven't spent a ton of time trying to fix my computer's issues because I avoid my apartment like I avoid eye contact with the creepy greasy staring guy that seems to live at the back of every bus I've ever ridden on. I'm back to peace with the roommates after a little spat earlier this week (I expect there will be a post about this in the future), but I still prefer the endless Asian banter of apartment 36 ("Did you buy that beef from Paul Ream?" "Yeayah!" "Wiggles, what are you doing with Paul Ream's beef?" "It's not mine it's the Healer's, dude." "You going to put some ketchup on that, dude?" "Yeayah!" lather. rinse. repeat. It's a joy.) to the endless dumb Molly talk of my apartment ("That's so cool that you live near Far West; I'm fascinated by church history." "Yeah, and there are some good-looking guys there too." "Ooo, I want to hear about this." "Well there's this one guy in our area, well, he's actually from Kansas City, but..." "Wait, is Kansas City in Kansas or Missouri?" "I've always wondered that, too." repeat endlessly. punctuated by racous laughter over things that are hardly funny enough to warrant a "that's amusing" smile. It's not a joy.)

Bladder Insomnia

So those three times peeing this morning mentioned in the previous post, as well as the three more before it was time to go to work weren't just for fun. I have a bladder infection, confirmed by the doctors this morning and I'm pretty sure that was the reason I couldn't sleep this morning...in case you were worried about the cause of my insomnia or abnormally interested in my urinary system.

Insomnia

Across the world of blogging, I'm sure there are plenty posts with this title and message. "I can't fall asleep." This is very rarely a problem for me. I take pride in my ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever I desire. So, while many of you have this problem every night and it's not really that big of a deal, I just need a moment to complain.

I woke up at 4am and haven't even felt tired since. I know I'm short on sleep and will be tired all day if I don't go back to sleep, but I don't think it's going to happen. I've gone to the bathroom three times in the last hour-and-a-half for lack of anything to do. And made fliers for the Halloween party to distribute to the ward so I could feel productive. I just want to sleep. I don't wake up until 7:30 most mornings, and I'm generally not feeling ready to be up at that time. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Update: It is now 7am. There's no use in going back to sleep at this point. I'm really glad I have this party to plan, or I'd have nothing to keep me entertained these lonely hours. But instead, it's been quite productive. I have a shopping list made (including, but not limited to: crepe paper, coconut, afro wig), a playlist started (it'll still take plenty of refining, I can't do much with my roommate asleep, but it's good to have that at least begun), and emails sent out to people that really ought to attend, but either haven't responded through facebook or aren't on facebook.

7:20 -- First person to email me a copy of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" wins a prize. Though I have an extensive Michael Jackson collection, I somehow don't have that song. I'm just as surprised as you are.

My seventeen-year-old sister

dressed up like this for super-hero day at school:


I think it's brilliant. And I knew spending the many many euro I did in the auction in French class in ninth grade to get that hat (it was a tough battle with Leah Filner (sp?)) would pay off someday. First person to name who she is wins a prize. And, for the record, she's a really pretty girl in real life, just difficult to see in this picture.

My eleven-year-old sister

wrote this essay for an essay contest at school, as was one of three finalists. She didn't win the grand prize of reading it on the radio, but now she's being published on the internet, so that's just as good, yes? She's always been the one in the family that we think of as "most likely to be a serial killer", but I it's a good essay, and she probably won't turn out all that bad. And she describes our family quite nicely. Enjoy:

“What My Family Means To Me”

My parents mean a lot to me. They buy food for me and just all and all love me. Every night as I go to sleep, mom or dad will come in to kiss me goodnight. Every day when my brother and I get home from school, my mom is always there to welcome us home. My Dad works most of the day to support our large family.

My brothers and sisters are really important to me. We do a lot of stuff together, even though not all of it is appreciated by mom and dad. For example, we like to take empty silly string bottles and explode them. We also like to put make-up on my younger brother Thomas who is 2 years old. Not only do I have a good time with my siblings, but also I learn a lot from them. They help me understand math and other homework that I don’t understand.

Every Monday evening our family will get together and have a family home evening. During this, we have a lesson about a church related topic, an activity of some sort that might be outside, and a treat. We also sing some songs. Some of the things that we do for activity are Frisbee golf, a game called “All in the family”, the name game, a game called “fruit basket”, the animal game, soccer and other games. Sometimes the kids in our family come up with odd games. One is TT-Ball (tackle, trampoline basketball). To play this game you put a basketball hoop by a trampoline and divide the people playing into 2 teams. One person from either of the teams will stand at the edge of the trampoline right across from the hoop and throw the ball to a team. The goal is to make a hoop and you are allowed to tackle a person on the other team if they have the ball. Another game that we came up with is called Sumo. The name came from Sumo wrestling. To play this game you have 2 to 4 people sit on a bed. The goal is to push all the other people off the bed.

I often have fun with individual members of my family. For example, my sister Jenny and I share a room and we often will read books together and talk late at night. My little brother Kevin and I enjoy talking as we walk home from school each day. We also often race each other to certain landmarks we have established on the way home. Often on summer mornings, Kevin and I will lie out on our trampoline and sing at the top of our lungs some annoying songs such as “John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith”. Sometimes my older sister Marsha and/or my older sister Melissa and I will experiment certain hairstyles on family member’s hair. Sometimes at night my baby brother, Tommy, will not want to go to bed. He tries to hide from mom and dad in my bed where I sometimes already am. He likes to play with my dolls. We also often make train tracks together.

My extended family also means a lot to me, even though I don’t see them very often because most of them live in Utah. Sometimes we get together for special occasions such as Thanksgiving and family reunions. My Grandpa Davenport usually makes Dutch-oven potatoes when we have reunions at the Lions Lodge in Pine Valley. Usually when we have reunions in Pine Valley, Aunt Gina and Uncle Doug bring a Karaoke machine. We have fun singing with it. I really enjoy my visits to Grandpa and Grandma Wonnacott because Grandma is a really good cook and it is fun to be with them. Their back yard has a large garden in it which I like to look at. I like the toys in the basement. I like Grandma Wonnacott’s style of decorating.

It is good to be in a family. Even though sometimes I get angry with them, I’m still glad that I have a family. They care about me and I care about them.

My thirteen-year-old sister

has chicken pox. She had them when she was younger, but got them again. They first showed up Sunday evening and she didn't go to school all week. It seems miserable.

I don't really remember having chicken pox, though I know I had them as a child. I have this re-occurring dream about having chicken pox and being at my grandmother on my mother's side's house and her telling me to take a bath in oatmeal and me being worried that that would be too expensive, not realizing that they're talking about a fairly minimal amount of oatmeal rather than the consistency that you eat. It may be based on fact. I have no idea.

Halloween Costuming

There are four events that I will attend this Halloween season that will require costuming. They are as follows:

Saturday before Halloween -- Monique's Halloween party in Payson. The roommates and I are going representing different high school cliques (a nerd, a cheerleader, a jock, etc.). I'm pretty sure I'm going to this one as an emo kid. Sweep the bangs in front of my eyes, wear tight jeans...and I've pretty much got it.

Monday before Halloween -- Ward FHE activity. I know little about this and therefore have little to say.

Halloween day at work -- The accounting department is going to become a jailhouse for Halloween. We're going to put up bars and have little potty chairs in each cubicle and some will dress up as law enforcement and some will dress up as inmates. I'm going to be an inmate and already have one of those fabulous orange jumpsuits on order. To make it more fun, each of us are going to be celebrities that have been to jail and have our cubicle and accessories individualized to whoever we're being. I, of course, wanted to be Paris Hilton as she's the most fun one I could think of and she is, as we all know, my celebrity boob twin. However, Kylee is tall and blonde and gets to be Paris. It's fairly settled that I'll be Winona Ryder. Because she has short brown hair and kleptomanic tendencies just like me. I don't think she ever actually went to jail, but she's still a celebrity that got in trouble with the law in a high profile case in recent memory, so she's fair game. And she's dated a lot of hot actors and even more hot rockers, so whatever, I can be her.

Halloween evening -- Costume dance party at my apartment. More planning needs to be put into this as soon as possible. I don't really want to be an emo kid or Winona Ryder for this event, so will probably need to put together yet another costume of some sort. But come and bring your friends. There'll be a facebook event up within the next couple days for this as soon as we settle on a time.

Anyway, I'm posting this to the world for help. Any ideas for making a truly great emo kid costume? Any ideas for how the heck to make a Winona Ryder costume outside of just wearing an orange jumpsuit and a name tag that says "Winona Ryder" (because somehow whenever I think about Winona Ryder, the only thing that comes to mind is Audrey Grisham ranting about how gross the spit strand is when she kisses Christian Bale in Little Women, and I'm pretty sure nobody would get it if I had a spit strand hanging from my mouth as part of my costume, though if I could somehow kiss Christian Bale, that would be okay with me (I'm putting him on my list, okay Trevor? You can kiss Angelina Jolie any time you have the chance and I can kiss Christian Bale any time I have the chance and it's fair game.))? And for the extracurricular costuming...any ideas at all?

Boring

I dream about work pretty much every night. It's rarely even anything special, just boring ol' working. Doing what I do for eight hours a day for several more hours. It's never been like this with any other job I've had, I'm not sure why it is with this one. I hate waking up and having to go back.

Radio Material

So this morning I go to the bank, thinking it'll be a normal quick transaction and I'll be out of there. But there are free donuts out, so I know it'll be a good day. And then "The Manly Morning Show" of The Zone, a local sports radio station, is on site and discussing the fact that one of the manly men of their morning show is wearing spandex. It is because he's biking down to the BYU game in Vegas for charity, but obviously the discussion has far more to do with spandex than helping underprivileged children go to sports camps. So I know it'll be a good day. Then they start going through the bank, looking for "the honest opinions of attractive women" and I get interviewed for the radio. They said they'd play the interviews tomorrow morning, so we'll see if anything gets used from the one with me, but it was a fun part of the day. The conversation went something like this:

John: How do you feel about a man in spandex?

Me: I think it's very courageous to go out in spandex.

John: Are you saying he looks bad? Turn around there, Hans, give her a solid view before she gives an opinion.

Me: He doesn't look bad.

John (laughing): So he doesn't look good?

Me: What do you want me to say, "Mmmm, baby, he looks fine"?

John: That would be good.

Me: Well, I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable saying that.

Hans: And I'm not comfortable with all of this scrutiny.

Me: But he's clearly in shape and it's admirable to be here in spandex putting up with everyone examining him under pressure from you.

John: Do you have a boyfriend or husband?

Me: Yeah, I have a boyfriend.

John: And how would you feel if he came home in spandex?

Me (laughing): He probably would, too, and have some ridiculous reason behind it. But I'd laugh and tell him he's taking it off immediately...not in like a good way.

So anyway, my only regret is I didn't know beforehand that I'd get to give an opinion on a 300-pound-former-BYU-football-player-turned-radio-host in spandex, so I could've been more eloquent. Also, I wish I'd thought quick enough on my feet to say what I was thinking about the whole time after I was interviewed: A man so broad-shouldered and slender-hipped probably shouldn't have chosen white spandex for the top and black for the bottom. It didn't suit him as well as...pretty much any other color combination. It would've been a service to Hans, who probably doesn't think about these things, but would in the future and look better for it, and a service to John, because, it's just plain radio gold.