Delving at Dusk

I just got back from a short run at dusk. I love dusk, it's such a temperate and beautiful time of day. It also holds so many great memories.
Dusk is what time drive-in movies start...
The time the neighborhood kids would gather for night games...
On the Ranch it was the time we would drive down to do dishes, almost the only people at the otherwise busy Ranch...
After barbecues, it's the time when you realize night is coming but you've been enjoying the conversation and company too much to clean up...
Softball games are either ending or beginning, depending on the league...

If you agree with me, share any dusk-related comments...

Stream of confession

How fortunate it is that the fashionable clothes of the day don't fit me. For if they did, I would have no money.

I went to the mall today because it is a beautiful day.
and beautiful days make me wish I was productive,
they also make me wish I had cuter clothes.
So I spent an hour at the mall feeling very self-conscious.
this, because of my inability to fit well into clothes
and obvious handicap in all things fashionable
and the fact that I'm wearing a yellow star of David that says JUDE on it.
this because it's holocaust remembrance day.

Sunbeam Chronicles

As a Sunbeam teacher in the ward, I feel it my duty to share the hilarity that ensues each week while trying to teach 3-4 year olds the gospel.

Easter Sunday, the other teacher (we team teach) was teaching a brief history of the life of Jesus. At the end of the lesson she passed a small stuffed animal to each child and asked them to share one thing they know about Jesus. One little boy, a visitor, was so excited to get the toy thrown to him he couldn't hold still: "me me! my turn!" so he gets it...but he can't think of anything to say about Jesus.
So he makes something up.
"He turned into a MONSTER!!!" he says getting up from his seat with his hands held above his head, making the international symbol for monster.
I couldn't help but laugh, but the teacher calmly told him that wasn't right and he had to think of something else.

Lime-Rickey

One day I met an old Hermit

His name was J. Maxwell Kermit

He wanted a car
though he wouldn't drive far,

but he never acquired a permit

Welcome to my Wasteland

I once heard about an old Italian woman who only threw away a small grocery bag worth of garbage every week. I think about that a lot. I realize that our society almost necessitates waste with all the packaging that goes into our consumption, and that we should be grateful for the blessings of convenience which we have, but at what point, I wonder, do we surpass being grateful for blessings and become egregious consumers and wasters?
I guess I just wish I was better at recycling basic things.

Journal Entry 3-28-07

So when I get stressed out my body reacts in a diverse ways. I get itchier as my eczema spreads and gains power like a little biological Adolph Hitler, and along with other functioning adult humans, I get canker sores in my mouth -- right now I have 4-5 concentrated together and beginning a little colony --
Why can't my body give me a freaking break?!
I'm already stressed out, the itchiness prevents or seriously hampers sleeping and canker sores ruin any pleasure that could be taken in eating. If I'm already stressed out, why would this a)help, except for the painful reminders and/or b)cut down or eliminate stress, as far as I'm concerned, my stress bucket runneth over once my body starts beating down on me as well as the rest of the world!

stupid body.

I've never been to Caribbea!

I apologize for the lapse in blogging, Life isn't much of a Lark when you're studying the Holocaust.
I've been so depressed that I want to cry until I vomit then vomit until I die.
But what can you expect when you study the murders of 11 million innocent people...

Good thing I have a Ben to keep me doing other things, we bought a piano and I can already play 2's of hymns. Kudos Danny Bradshaw...Kudos.

Who's got a case of the Mondays?

I think I am suffering from post-Spring-Break-itis.
I'm infected with the realization that there are no more vacations or days off for the rest of the semester.
I also realize that there are only a limited number of days and weeks left before summer term.
(yes, I'm going to enroll for summer term)
I'm not stressed out about this, on the contrary, I'm completely and utterly caught up, even ahead of schedule in some classes.
I have nothing to do! (there's the rub) I sit for hours at work with ample time to do homework, I don't have enough to keep me busy,
I stare out the windows, start poetry duels, gaze, graze, glazed.

I started reading "Gone With The Wind" (It was the only decent reading in the lab)
and am almost halfway through after only a weeks worth of extra work time reading

Utah County Madness

I spent the morning at a scrapbooking extravaganza sale at the UVSC.
The demographic at this events, and I assume at similar events, was not varied.
Hundreds and Hundreds of women. Old, young, skinny, not skinny, big hair, short hair, bleached hair, permed hair. all Utah women, I stood in line with some women who came from VERNAL, just to go to this extravaganza. With these women came the babies, so many cranky cranky babies.
I don't blame them,
I was cranky too.
After 10 minutes of perusing and picking things out, I got in line
2 hours later I paid.
It was a long line.
with lots of women...with hair...and cranky babies.
and me.

Boing!!!

Spring Break is upon us, I am basically caught up on my homework and you can only clean an apartment so many times...

I need a project, any ideas?

Witty Witty Wednesday

Well, I think we're overdue for a new post. And as it happens to be a wicked wednesday, I think that is occasion enough. Since my last post...
I got a new haircut/color that I'm wild about, and Ben even likes it.
I started riding a bike to campus, really only twice but I think it's worth not having to bother with
parking. While I'd like to claim that I do it to save the environment and all that...I just hate having to find
parking,
parking in the morning means
parking a block closer to Grummas and a block farther from school.
I started working mornings at the tutoring center, I've even done several class visits that I was so worried about and no one has even thrown fetid fruit at me. not even fruit loops.
today I went to the Women's Appreciation luncheon at the Institute and decided I don't really like the idea of potato bars.
That is all

Drum On You Crazy Drum-man

I now no longer work in the shower doors/mirrors field.
GOOD RIDDANCE!

I am now a fully part-time tutor at the UVSC (soon to be the UVU, if you hadn't heard)
unfortunately I still tutor history and ethics.
(turns out people want tutors for things like Chemistry and Physics.
so distasteful.)
This makes me both anxious and content.
I spend my whole shift nervous that someone is going to come in and need my help.
At the same time, nobody ever comes in and needs my help - so I do my homework.

but the students who desperately need help with Chemistry think I'm just lazy and making the other tutors do all the work, that is just not true.

I do need to drum up some more business for my extra hours, meaning class visits and talking to professors and such. This is not my forte. we'll see what happens.

To the Creative and/or Skilled

Don't ask me why but I was debating with myself whether it would be more fulfilling and satisfying to be a gourmet cake decorator or a professional photographer.
I came to the conclusion that if you are incapable of creating fantastic things, it might be just as well to take magnificent pictures of magnificent things.

If neither of those, to at least see all things as magnificent.

I'm sorry if I don't make sense.

Ode to a Diet Dr. Pepper

Yesterday I had exactly no food. I did have some money though so I spent it on drinks, vending machine food is usually disappointing.
Unfortunately the search for a Dr. Pepper in the afternoon turned out to be in vain, I was forced, by shortages, to take a Diet Dr. Pepper.
Then I was bored
So I wrote a poem
about this travesty.

I need to explain before we go on, the pronunciation of the word Aspartame. For our purposes here, it is...aspart-amie

Aspartame,
Greek God of Sugar
An idle, false idol,
The scorn of Olympus

My foe in diet drinks
imposter invading my intestines
A foul and fetid substitute
for the pleasures given of nature

An insufficient chemical
masquerading
as something
more.

Deep Within the Archives

I found a short story, probably written during church or a road trip. The handwriting indicates it was authored by the once and always, Jan Gillespie Francisco not too long ago, probably not long after she met the hippie Jeddo.

The Next Day's T
Alfonzo ate the burrito without reserve.
"The ground is clean, therefore, the burrito is clean." thought he. Just then Hermia approached him. She was wearing a blue painter's frock, bespeckled with yellow paint. On each wrist was a shark tooth bracelet. She was a daffodil, personified, thought Alfonzo.
"Howdy, y'all, ya'll want to go to the discotech naw?" Hermia had an abnormal fondness for the discotech, so much that Alfonzo never ate beef. Because beef is dynamite, and it made Alfonzo large and unwieldy, so he couldn't bust a move. Oh how Alfonzo loved Hermia. He had a large garden, completely full of pansies, in the shape of her face. Hermia in turn, loved Alfonzo.
The End.

*All spelling is presented here as was originally written.

The 4 Hour tour

four hour siesta
warm and cuddling sleeping time
please don't wake me up.

Power Broker

Here's the deal. I really want to cut my hair short again. This frightens Ben to no end. Others have pointed out that the inability to put my hair in a quick ponytail will severely limit my hair-doing proficiency.
So I've struck a deal.
Starting last Friday I made the deal with myself (and Ben but he doesn't really care and he's still against it) that if I can wake up early enough to actually do my hair for 2 weeks, and save up my allowance, I can get a haircut. So far so good, I even did my hair over the weekend. I'll keep you posted. And if you have any ideas for ways to do my hair other than straightening with random bobby pins stuck in, let me know.

A Simpler Life

I extend a hearty welcome to my nephew Clark on entering this world just this morning. It's a crazy one.
We moved into our long anticipated apartment today. We will be sleeping in our long lost bed tonight and relish the thought.
As I was just sitting in said bed, I turned a CD on and listened to "I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends" by Jack Johnson, you might know it as the opening credits to Napoleon Dynamite by the White Stripes. I love this song, it's simple melody and innocent lyrics. I thought about young Clark and how innocent his world is and will continue to be for a few years yet. I thought about a good friend, recently jilted in love; if only the world could continue to be as simple and innocent as that song...

A Kinder Garden Thought

This comes from the treasured mouth of Junie B. Jones.
With all the talk of babies, I thought it was pertinent.
"A crib is a bed with bars on the side of it. It's kind of like a cage at the zoo. Except with a crib, you can put your hand through the bars. And the baby won't pull you in and kill you."

Leaving Plato's Allegory

They are finally moving out!

rumor in the house is that the neighbors that have been continually living in our justly deserved apartment are moving out.
and I couldn't be more thrilled.
Ben is still pessimistic...not much changes

We even get to do some repainting, anyone is welcome to come and help
It's going to be a great week.

we're leaving the cave.