Spell silence

Another spring break coming to an end. It was sunny today and really warm. A good day that had a somewhat bitter tasting ending, this sunny Friday in St. George, Utah.

Sometimes I wonder...

How old you have to be to act like an adult around your parents?
How long I have to live in this country before I can be just a person, as opposed to the Swede?
If I'll ever hear an entire Abba song in public (in the US) without someone pointing out that "they're Swedish!!!" and "do you love them???"
Why we grow up to be our parents?
If I'll ever figure out what the hell Central Time is, I hate that the TV just tells me 9/10c and I have no idea when to watch what.

Sometimes I wonder why? Why, why, why....

Spring Break

If you are going to crash on the ski hill... wait to closing day and do it in spandex. It's just better that way.
Pebble is closed for the season, Sarah and Nick are driving back to Montana and we are heading to Zion national park.

What I think

If you’re walking slower than the guy pushing the mop, you don’t need to occupy a treadmill.
If you have no clue what you’re ordering, you don’t need to get in the 3 person line yet.
If you’re not sharing with everyone in your minivan, you don’t need a 64 oz mug of soda.
If you’re going a total distance of two blocks, you don’t need to drive.
If you’re only reason is that you love your voice, you don’t need to raise your hand in class

and
if you have nothing new to tell me, you don’t need to call my office.

Questions on that?

Just cause I thought the spinach needed to be used

Me: is it cool if it's more like an egg scramble..? Just realized I've never actually made a successful omelette in my life...
D: I can make an omelette ... (making it sound like it's opening a yoghurt container, or something similarly difficult)
Me: Ok, well… then omelette it is.

So I fry the onion, mushrooms, garlic and spinach. Grate the cheese and make the omelette mix. Pour it in, turn the heat down…. And when I call Mr. Gordon Ramsey over to flip the omelette…. He f-s it up and makes it into, what else, a scramble.
Which is fine.
Then he blames me for letting the bottom get too brown before calling him.
Not fine.
And promises that next time, he’ll show me how to make the perfect omelette.
Oh, this is so on.

It's a very flat chicken, shaped like a cracker

I have a new obsession.
The chickn n’ biskit crackers.
Marlee got me hooked.
Before that I’d seen them in store but
a) I thought it said “chicken and a basket” which made no sense… and
b) hello, I don’t eat chicken.

But then she brought them to Targhee and I figured what the hell, it’s a damn cracker not an actual chicken. And I can't deny it, they’re good. I think the main reason I like them is cause they’re so salty.
I told you, I could eat a salt shaker way easier than a bowl of sugar.
Anyways, I realize they must have some form of chicken in or on them…. And I don’t feel so great about that.
But on the other hand, I’ve tried to imagine live chickens being ground up, beaks and feathers and all, specifically to be sprinkled onto my crackers.
Awful scenarios playing in my mind. My snack is flavored with the dust of murder. And?
Nothing.
Honestly, I don’t care. I love those crackers.
I just don’t love that I love them.

Lemme tell ya

You haven’t experienced true frustration until you've dealt with US immigration services.
Just so you know.

No need to be PC on Sunday

Dylan is watching a show on face blindness. It might be some of the dumbest crap I’ve witnessed in a long time.
No, no, I believe it’s real diagnoses or whatever … and I’m sure being face blind sucks. But this show sucks more. Reason? The damn reporter.
This is how I believe the pitching for this show went:

Ditsy reporter woman (in a British accent) : So I find the topic of face blindness positively fascinating and I want to do a whole show on it!

Male CBS boss: I see… so how do propose the layout of the show?

Woman (let’s car her Barbara): Oh! Well! I will speak to people who suffer from face blindness and ask them what it is like….. and then I will show them pictures of faces, of faces!! Get it? cause they’re face blind…. So they won’t recognize the faces!
And then, when the viewer feels like I got all the mileage I can out of that…. I’m going to just keep on talking about it. Cause I mean, these people are face blind! They are face blind! They don’t recognize faces. At all!
Imagine a person not speaking Russian, trying to read Russian and understand what they are reading…. Well, they can’t right?
This will be just like that. But with faces!

Boss: I didn’t hear a word you just said. Show me your tits and you got yourself a show!

Life on top

Ah rain. It's ok. I'd almost rather rain on a day like today.
One of the things I really like about this new apartment is that is has the slanted ceilings.... is that the right word, slanted?
It's cozy, anyways, and it makes me feel good at heart.

I like this neighbourhood, I like this house, I like our nooky appartment.
This is good, right here.

Scary cat

Daisy used to be such an outside cat. When we lived on Hayes Avenue we’d let her out and not see her for a day or two.
She was always wanting to be outside.
And I used to think that people who had inside cats were kinda mean and that all cats obviously wanted to be outside.
But now, god she’s such a wuss.
On Center street we’d kick her out, not let her out, but kick her out, and she’d sit by the window an meow and whine and finally be let back in.
And now, at the new place she’s even worse.
Yesterday when I came back from work I took her with me and sat out on the front steps for like ten minutes to show her that the outside is cool and fun, and she should play there.
She freaked out and was scratching the door and meowing like crazy. Two seemingly intoxicated men walked by (Aid for Friends is just up the street) and the one looked at me, and then zoomed in on Daisy going ape shit on the door, then looked at me again and said
“seems like that kitty of yours might wanna go inside there…”
and he was right of course.
So we went inside.

I would rather have a tarantula on my face...maybe

Back in town. Back in the office. It’s already passed lunch time and I haven’t done any of the homework today was devoted to. It’s like people expect me to work when I’m at work… gosh, get off my back already.

Also, I have a ranula. Awesome. If you don’t know what that is… be thankful. It’s a blister caused by a clogged salvatory gland. A cyst under my tongue, basically.
I was just in the Dental Hygiene office (where I got to show it off fin front of like 20 students who were super excited to see one in real life…) and was told I need oral surgery.
Crap.

But my hair is slick and my pants are sharp

Lecture, talk, poster session, run back to the room and crank out an annotated bibliography.
Boom.
Do I get paid?
Not much.
Love grad school.
Our presentation is in 3 hours and 15 minutes.
Wish me luck!

so weird

Someone at this conference has really smelly feet.
And they’ve been to all my sessions today, every single one.
And now I think they’re hiding under my bed.

that's all

Since I did a piss poor job of packing (at 10:30pm after moving all day..) I went out and bought myself a pair of nice, high-water dress pants.
They are so business.
They are not me at all.
At all.
My pants say business so loud I’m thinking I won’t have to say anything at all during our presentation.

Everything's so big in Phoenix...

I'm on the 7th floor of the Hyatt. Which is basically the basement, it's that tall. I have a balcony that's only mine. It's the size of a normal bedroom and has a huge table with 5 chairs.
It's kind of cool but it makes me feel a little bad. Like the furniture is standing out there, starring at me through the glass doors, whispering
"that's it? it's just her in there? well, so much for the grand evenings out here with friends watching the sunset while sipping cocktails and talking about culture and exotic places..."

A little bit ago I was going to ride the elevator down to the main floor and had to let the first one go because I couldn't fit in there. There was a girl and a wedding dress, no room for me. When the seccond elevator stopped, it had like seven people in it, and plenty of space for me. The elevators are big. And so was the dress.

Last day on Center st

Mid-moving lunch break. Got a text saying "me and Adam stopped for lunch at El Heradero" And my initial reaction was of course "what the hell? what about me?"
but then I calmed down and decided that
a) Adam deserves a lunch out for helping us and
b) I don't really like the food there anyways.
Then I realized our kitchen is all packed up.... But spinach, fake crab and mayo was exactly what I was planning on eating for lunch anyways.

fel blogg

Had the privilege to meet and sit down with such an intelligent person today. Doesn’t happen every day.
And if you’ve seen my facebook status today, then yes, it’s the same person.
(I love that I’m explaining this like people follow me….”oh, yes that is in fact a reference to my twitter update, not to be confused with my facebook post, so sorry to have you read the same thing twice…” right. just like that)
I didn’t post that on facebook because I had to for work though. I like to make that clear to all my non-readers. And I’m not writing this because Simon said she’d read my blog. She even said she’d follow it. Follow…..and then she never asked for the address.
Like, “I’m not just gonna ask you out I’m gonna seriously date you for years”
and then not ask for the phone number.

Anyways, she’s forgiven. Because she said things that made more sense that anything I’ve heard in a long time. I felt like the logic slots in my brain were shaped like octagons and most people keep feeding me circles and rectangles and hexagons and whatever (seriously, this makes sense in my head so if you don’t like the analogy….oh, well) and it kind of works but her words just slid right into place without friction. Without questions.
She talked about anarchism, activism, religion and other stuff I normally have a really hard time understanding and identifying with.
But she made it made sense.
Octagons.
It was really cool.
I don’t doubt that she’s super smart. That’s why I went with intelligent when I first described her. But I feel like there’s a better word. Or like I need more words.
Tomorrow I get to go listen to her for two hours.
I am very excited.
Octagons.

Fruit salad

We have a surfing kiwi on the couch. Well, he’s not really on the couch, he’s in the guest bedroom. But he is a surfer, in every sense of the way. Couches, kites, boards… he surfs. And he’s a kiwi, lost in the land of potatoes.

What was I thinking...?

I am so tired. Our conference starts tomorrow and I’m supposed to last till 7 pm this workday on 3 hours of sleep.
Coffee me up.
And, more than anything I feel like such an idiot. One day that lasted. One day. Sunday night: Apology, promise to change, want to be a better person, accept this gift as a token of my sincerity.

And we were like, oh… that’s nice. Everybody deserves a second chance. If he’s reaching out a hand we can take it.

Monday night: drag home random chicks, give them the tour of the house (as always, why can’t you go to their house???) they’re loud, you’re loud, they rile up the pets, they lock my cat in the attic, they stay up till 5, I ask them to keep it down, they say yes, but they don’t. You don't. You don't change.

Oh august, please come soon. Then our lease is up and we can finally move out.

I sensed that

I just read in one of my textbooks that as teachers, we must not forget to use common sense. Well, that makes sense. The fact that they had to point it out, not so much.

Ironic

I remember one time, I was somewhere in the teens, and we were driving and I asked my mom, over her shoulder as she was sitting in the front seat: -hey mom, what does ironic mean?
And she said “well….” and thought about it for a while so I sad:
-is it like when you have ten thousand spoons but all you need is a knife?
I already knew that was the correct answer, I had the entire album memorized and loved it like I had never loved a CD before. Or since, really. But some of it just didn’t quite make sense to me.
I didn’t get it.
And not necessarily because the words were too hard, I had a dictionary and knew how to use it, but still. I couldn’t imagine what it would look like if a person fell with their heels over their head, I had no idea what you did when you wined and dined somebody and I’m not even going to go into what I thought it meant to go down on someone in a theatre (although it’s a lot more innocent than the real deal..)
And then there was “ironic.” I felt like I needed more of an explanation, because to me, a mountain of spoons when you need a knife and a non-smoking sign on your cigarette break were not the same at all. Not even close. And then the plane crashing down…? Nope, had to ask mom.

(The word ironic, by the way, is the same in Swedish and English)

Back to the car. Mom goes: No… no, I wouldn’t say that’s ironic, really, that’s more unnecessary or bad luck. For something to be ironic it needs something darker, more sarcastic to it…. wouldn’t you say? She turned to my dad and he agreed and then they talked about the words ironic and sarcastic and comedians they thought were funny and satires they had seen and god knows what else.
I was sitting in the backseat, watching trees go by and I couldn’t decide who to trust, my parents or Alanis Morisette?

I just remembered that today because I was thinking how ironic it is that last year we were sitting in a decent size duplex and wished for more space. Now we live in a huge house and spend almost all our time in a small bedroom.
Isn’t that ironic? Don’t you think?

Don't you dare feel blue

All the paperwork is in the envelope, now I just need D to come sign it. He did once already, and thank god I looked through the instruction sheet one extra time this morning, otherwise we would have sent it in with our signatures in blue ink!
Blue!
Ink!
We’ve done that once before and it only set us back about 4 months.
I still feel nervous, like I left something blank or filled out something the wrong way or submitted an undated copy of something or another. .. when you deal with Homeland Security, it has to be done just so.
Just so perfect.
And just so not in any other color ink than black.