The Land of Cheese and Elk

My weekends are generally something to be looked forward to with excitement and anxious anticipation. This weekend, however, brought more excitement than usual. I decided to go to Logan and visit my fantastic cousin Mugs. I made the occasional trips in my younger years with my family to see the elk and go to the cheese factory. This was the epitome of heaven for my family, especially my dad. I still look back lovingly on those memories, but have come to further question the abnormalities my family and I are privy to. The idea of bundling up the kiddies and putting them on a sleigh to travel slowly across a snowy expanse watching a herd of lazy elk eat and poop isn’t precisely something a lot of people did. I used to bring it up casually in elementary school conversations about how I spent my Saturday freezing my bones off watching some elk than got to eat samples of peculiar flavored cheeses. I would stand there waiting after describing my weekend for the other school yard kids to excitedly exclaim how they had done that the previous weekend too or how they were so jealous of the things my family and I did on our weekends. I still ponder on how I was completely friendless in those days…Diverging from that tangent. I miraculously found Megan’s apartment and decided to explore Utah State’s campus while I waited for her to get off work. I was struck with how breathtakingly beautiful it was and how surprisingly similar the campus was set up to BYU. I was walking up one of the many giant hills in Logan and ran smack into 3 uniformed USU athletes. My abilities in the suave department really came to my aid in this moment. One of them smiled and me and said, “Hey, How’s it going?” Instead of responding I just smiled and kept awkwardly walking right into another person who was waiting to cross the street. Startled, I apologized and snapped my head back to watch the rugby players walk away only to meet eyes with one of the boys who undoubtedly was watching to see if I did anything else extremely sexy.
Megan and I had talked about doing a few things, but we mostly just spent the weekend relaxing. She got back from work and we met up with her friends Steve and Karen. We went to dinner at the only place we seem to every go when we go out, Wingers. Our waiter had a lip ring so Karen decided to ask him if it hurt, to which he replied no. I jumped into the conversation with, “What about when you’re kissing? Does it hurt then?” Apparently he gets really great reviews and offered to ask one of the people he works with to testify of such or told me if I come in again, I can decide for myself. I never really liked Wingers anyway…A miracle occurred when we got back to the house. I played Nintendo and didn’t suck. That is, until Steve changed the level from “So easy a toddler could beat this thing” to “What seven year old kids do as a warm up”. My poor little victory at Star Wars Speed Racer was crushed into oblivion at least 30 times over. I went to bed shortly after to let “the adults” have grown up talk ;)
Saturday was by far the best. I woke up at nine and went on a fun hour long run all through Logan. I am still marveling at the beauty of that city. If you haven’t been there, you need to go right now. Seriously. Afterward, Megan and I went to the pool and resorted back to our childhood years. We jumped off the diving board, went down the slide, had a hand-stand contest and tried to touch the bottom of the deep end. I also got to read a new book called “The Hunger Games” while we were laying out and it was fantastic. We honestly bummed around after that. Watched a bazillion episodes of Psych, painted our toe nails, I finished my book, we went to church. It was truly lovely! So while venturing out to Logan doesn’t include the same activities it did when I was a child, it brought just as much joy as elks and cheese used too(and probably still would ;)

Creepy Old Men

I have encountered a wide range of creepy old men in my life. The ones who, when you go to shake their hand, not only hold yours for too long but do a nasty finger massage in your palm. Or the ones who stare at you with that uncomfortable, "If I was a few years younger" look. Well, I am apparently a constant attractor of the creepiest of the creeps. Now one would normally suspect this would be some sort of compliment on my attractiveness level. Not so. Those who are truly attractive intimidate creepy old men into suppressed restraint and cause all the young, non-creepy guys to fall in love with them. People like my roommates fall into this category. I unfortunately fall into the later. My extensive evidence comes from many years of creepy man encounters and is derived particularly from the experiences of the past two weeks. Here comes the cookie cutter definition of a creepy old man. I am walking with a semi-creeper man into one of the departments and we stop at this man's desk who I say "hi" to in the hallways sometimes. The three of us are talking for awhile and the creeper man turns to the other and says something to the effect of, "Thanks for bringing her around. I derive such pleasure from looking at young, beautiful girls like her". Um, what? I am standing right here mister! The favorite creeper comment came shortly after this. I said I wanted to go to Hawaii this summer. Jokingly, they said they said would come too. Creepy man numero uno goes, "I would go to Hawaii if you went. I would bring my binoculars so I could look through them and find your good looking body on the beach."Creeper number two goes, "I have binoculars with a camera..we could bring those" To which number one's reply was "Naw, like I said. I like finding pleasure in the now." They both turn to me and laugh. In the epitome of awkwardness I forcibly laugh for lack of anything else to do and hurriedly mumble something about getting back to work. Before I am able to stumble away, creepy man one asks if I have a boyfriend. Upon discovering I don’t, he expresses how grateful he is that my boyfriend won’t be coming to beat him up. He also threw in there how sad he is that his only son is married. “To have you as a daughter-in-law, ohhh, it would be like having sunshine in the house everyday”. I truly admire the skill of these men. Throw in some seemingly flattering and kind thoughts to mask the creepy ones. Impressive. Moral of the Story: Men out there: Don't be creepers. Thanks a heap!

One Year Later

This weekend marked a year since my old roommate Cindy got married. By chance, all of my lovely roommates were together again at this same time one year later. On Thursday we went to Bron's hilarious show and caught up at dinner afterward. I missed out on Friday :( cause I had a date, but they went wedding dress and ring shopping with Sarah. The date was really fun, though of course, my apparently awkward comments helped make it particularly interesting. For example, as we were eating a tasty chicken dish at Applebee's, my date said, "You haven't said much about your parents". My really suave and appropriate self replied with, "Well, that is because they were murdered by Ted Bundy when I was five". I attempted to laugh as quickly as possible after saying this to indicate it was a joke, but my poor date didn't think it was quite as funny as I did. When I told my parents this afterward, they also didn't think it was funny and reiterated their opinion that I have a sometimes off-color humor. I am disregarding their opinion in favor of believing that I am actually quite hilarious and mostly appropriate. Saturday D, Lys and I went swimming and had ourselves a successful little barbeque that night with B-Hobbs, Brian and Sarah. At the end of the night, I hugged my beautiful Lys goodbye and drove back to the Riv. Sunday was spent enjoying the blessings of going to church and spending time with the family for Father's Day. It made me miss my dad terribly, but I was grateful to be in the company of my second favorite family, the Milks. Mugs and I went to Provo that night to visit some of her mission friends and my desire to marry a non-white man was most adamantly enforced as I met her half Venezuelan half Italian friend Carlo. People with brown skin are just beautiful and posses a level of being sexy I will never achieve. Therefore, I must marry a brown person so my poor kids will at least have some chance of being attractive. With all the wonderful things that happened this weekend, I felt it paled in comparison to the one exactly a year ago. One of my best friends is in love just like last summer. I was around four of my favorite people in the world just like last summer. The weather was pretty much identical to last summer. It just wasn't the same though. This whole summer feels eerily like a watercolor of the previous neon streaked dream I experienced a year ago. I love this summer so far, I really do. My job is fantastic, my family is beyond wonderful, my adventures so far have been fun and fulfilling, but it just isn't the same. I miss people :( mom, dad, Sarah, mission friends...I hope I am able to turn this summer back into a brighter, more colorful experience soon and stop drifting back to compare the past to the present.

The Beginning of the Royal Announcements

I am currently torn about commencing this blog. Firstly, I hate the word blog in general. It is simply devoid of any audiotry appeal. Bah-log. Second, I have always mocked those who willingly display all their inner thoughts and feelings on the internet with the expectation all computer users will avidly follow every detail of said persons life. One might wonder at this point why, with my current inhibitions, I would succumb to starting a blog. Boredem is a dominating factor and I am also doing this to save my family and friends from having to listen to me for hours on end. The desperate need for a communication outlet was so vivdly displayed last night. I had the opportunity to go with my lovely roommates to "The Wedding Singer" at West Valley Hale to see one of our roommates perform her talented litte heart out. I attempted to dominate every conversation by telling supremely random and useless tidbits about my dull life and felt like putting duct tape over my mouth by the end of the night. I usually talk a lot and mostly about random stuff, but this summer calls for desperate measures. I am living with my aunt, uncle, a cousin who thinks I "crimp his style" and Zoe, the morbidly obese dog who tries to eat all my food and poisons the air within a ten mile radius when she passes gas. My other cousin, one of my best friends in the world, moved to Idaho today for the next two months which is another vital reason to find other resources of expression.
Interesting thoughts intenteded to salvage the lengthy explaination above: Today I watched an advisory committe for flibanserin. This drug is intended to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premneopausal women. When I first looked at the presentation docket, I wondered if there was a condition known as hyperactive sexual desire disorder. As embarrassing as stating you have no sexual desire could be, I tried to imagine going into my doctor's office and telling him/her about what a sex fiend I was and if there was treatment for that. The second thought provoking item was the sponsor presentor was a sexologist. Sexology is apparently the scientific study of sexual interests, behavior, and function and a valid profession. I wonder if BYU offers sexology as a major. If not, I am sure they at least offer it as a minor. Books to check out for the semester: Kama Sutra, Reproductive Anatomy, Pedophilia 101,...oh the possbilities. I am immensely looking forward to the day someone introduces themselves to me as a sexology major.
So it begins. The random declarations of a king :)