Cucucucu cucucucu I say, cucuconversation cuconfusion

How I hate the awkwardness of flirtation. Well, not so much flirtation as the uncomfortable mix up of emotion and fear and discombobulation (a real word--I looked it up) of seeing someone and feeling the pheromones rush through the bloodstream and switching intermittently between the hope that he will talk to you and the hope that he won't because you have no earthly idea of what you would say if he did. Then he does begin conversation and my tongue suddenly swells up in my face and dribbles words all over where they don't belong punctuating them with awkward phrases and expressions. What a mess! Okay, so the actual tongue dripping thing was just an analogy but still... a mess.

If I am brutally honest with myself I will admit that while I am certrainly not ugly I could never be called a great beauty and while I absolutely love learning and study I am certainly no genius. Still, calculated objectively I can also say that I am not altogether hopeless as a female. Still, it seems that whenever I stand up in front of a boy...any boy... I end up looking more like Elmer Fudd than anything attractive at all. Well, maybe I don't look bald and baloon nosed but I certainly sound and feel that way. Blah. In an effort to help me out my sister (age 16) gave me a list of chit-chaty topics for my own use. Examples:
-"Darn it's hot..."
-"Do you have any pets?" Then she counseled me to bring up the tragic drowing incident of the family dog in the family pool thinking it would be a good subject. A bit morbid for my taste, but definately opposes the Elmer Fudd model so perhaps I shouldn't complain.
-"How about that meeting, huh?"
-"Are you concerned about global warming?"
-"What did you have for dinner? Do you cook?"
-Anything about herself she suggested.
*Most important-- Avoid politics with old people and liberals and cadaver lab stories with everyone and limit discussions about bodily processes such as digestion, respiration, and the lymph node systems,

Unfortunately the off-limits list contains all the conversation topics that I find truly exhilerating, but what can I do? I guess the best I can do is practice until I can be as good a conversationalist as my little sister, or at least as good as my boy Elmer. Meantime I'm working to keep my pheromones under control (even though I'm not allowed to talk about them.)

Song Lyrics

So I've been thinking lately about song lyrics. What if someone were to find the remnants of our civilization after it were destroyed Pompey style in a freak accident that leaves nothing but a mushroom cloud the size of the Atlantic Ocean and all the song lyrics ever written? What would people say about my society? What would they discern about our way of life? For example: "Just like the white winged dove sings the song sounds like she's singing oo baby oo say oo" or "shot through the heart and you're too late you give love a bad name" or "I'm too sexy for my cat" or even "Listen to the sounds of silence".

If that was all some goupy alien who breathed out of his ears knew about our world, what would he (or she, or it) think about me? Perhaps he would envision some frightening bird/cat cross that bleeds sensually and sings and spends most of my time trying to hear silence through what it considers its lungs. Stuff from nightmeres for sure.

I love laughing at lyrics.

Collection of random thought pieces

So I have a job now. I work around 35 hours each week in a physical therapy clinic out in Denton. It is admitably a bit of a commute but I like it there, so no complaints. The therapist is very patient and friendly and the other tech is also super helpful and I love working with them. Best of all I love worknig in a physical therapy capacity. The patients are the absolute best part. The other day I was helping a sweet Mexican man in his mid forties. He has a bad ankle we are helping him with. Anyway, he asked me how I liked the job and I told him I liked it a lot. He asked about my hours and I told him. He said that it must be an especially good job if I wasn't forced to work on Saturday and Sunday as well. I felt so guilty for all the times I had felt to complain for being at work with nothing to do. How lucky I am to live in such a capacity that I can have my weekends to myself. Indeed how lucky to have a job at all, let alone one that I enjoy so very much. There are funny moments as well. Friday I was helping an older slightly grumpy woman remove an electrode pad from her arm. She was mumbling so I couldn't understand her words very well at first so I just smiled at her but then she said again (only a tiny bit cantankerously) "you're pulling my skin off. Just let me do it." then she took the pads out of my hands and she pulled them of. Uncomforatable at the time but alright later.

On a completely unrelated tangent, I have decided that the popularity of "reality" shows is depressing on several levels. First of all, it shows very clearly that rather than live the reality of our own lives we opt to watch others live their heavily comercialized producer-created "realities" on television and then we laugh at their follies and mistakes. Perhaps because we are afraid to live our own lives we are gratified somehow when others make horribly publicized blunders. It makes me sad, somehow that these shows are so very popular, especially when their popularity spikes by some unexpected tragedy. Sad, somehow.

There was a tornado in this area last week. It was actually kind of fun, somehow. The power died around seven, just as we were planning to tak the girls to mutual. The sky turned staticy, almost like there were black lights shining everywhere. Then we looked up and everything seemed dead for a few breaths. There was no rain and no wind, but in the sky the dark clouds were literally churning in like the lazy bubling of thick soup right before the true boil begins. It was exciting but frightening. Eventually we were all sitting in the far end of the front room as close to the closet under the stairs as we could get without climbing behind the dirty laundry. Daddy had taken the lanterns, lighters, and most of the flashlights for a campout so we used whatever we could including Toria's little "light bright" dude. Paigers and Sarah made a hilariously morbid picture of lightning hitting the house and it all errupting in flame. While I laughted outright, I don't think Toria appreciated it much. We lost two sections of fence but other than that we did alright. Lots others did lots worse. There were trees down all over, roofs torn off, and store signs all over the road. We didn't get power back till about three in the morning so all us girls camped out in the living room with the windows opened since the air didn't work. To my dismay I found that sleeping on the ground was actually super difficult. I thought it wouldn't be so bad as I use to sleep on the floor all the time. Maybe I really am getting old. When the rain came back (and it did with a vengence--huge lightening and thunder a few miles from the house) we were still sleeping and more than a little water poured inside. Still, it was fun. I enjoyed it. Is that sick? I guess I can say it safely because no one got hurt. So yes. I enjoyed the rain and the destruction and the edge of fear and hysteria that kept me laughing all night. Oh dear, maybe I really am crazy.

In a final bit of news, I have found somewhere to live! I am so very grateful. I will room with a girl who is Christian but not Mormon, but with a very reasonable rent, right next to the busstop and close to the school, and sweet roommates to all go with it I am very excited and expecting a great year. We'll see, but I'm excited. : )

The Other Side of the Mirror

Before I begin, here are some discoveries I have made since last writing:

> Barbie dolls have a patheticly small range of motion that is impossible to repeat

> Gas prices went down but have steadily increased since then

> A house in Texas without power for more than 6 hours gets hot fast (this comes from the frighteningish experience of a tornado hitting down a few miles from my house. Wild.)

> You can only watch so many chick flicks before you begin losing brain cells

> Exercise doesn't always work (I have, in fact, gained three pounds since I started going to the gym daily three and a half weeks ago. Time to lay off the treadmill it would seem.)

> Contrary to what you may think blackberries, celery, tuna, pasta, and chipotle sauce do not make a delicious mix. It is, however, eccentrically interesting.

> Wishing something doesn't necesarily make it so and unforutnately doing all you can doesn't even always work. Still, that way at least you have no regrets.

> Blackberry jam is stinking hard to get out of clothes

> Prayer really does work

> laughter is not just for children--we should all try it.

So, my brother left to go on his mission recently. Well, technically he went with Dad and Grandpa to hunt and hang out for a week in Idaho with a before he reports to the MTC but who wants to get technical. The point is, it is so strange to see missionary work from the opposite perspective now that I have had my own experience. To read his e-mails and pray for him instead of relying on his prayers is different. As I read his e-mails I find myself second guessing myself a lot. Is that odd? I find myself wondering, was I this way? Did I have that much faith? Did people actually read my letters? Did I offend people? How was my grammer? Then as my tiny mind begins to whirl like a rusty turbine cliking and complaing as it goes I begin all types of wild worries. Why can't I remember? Why do I care? Am I really dissolving into a materialistic shallow ditz who spends all her free time worrying about what people thought of me years and years ago? What about what people think of me now? Why don't I ever date? Am I going to be an old maid? Will I be grumpy? How will I make my own way? I so want a baby... maybe I'll be able to adopt?

Anyway, you get the picture. Not a good path. The point is it is interesting to watch from the other side. I remember taking off for my own mission. I was so nervous! I spent the night before in a hotel with my parents. I cried myself to sleep with my fist in my mouth to silence my sobs so that my parents wouldn't worry. I just felt so underqualified and weak to the cause that was put up to me. I was scared that I would mess it up and ruin those I was called to serve for all eternity. Rubbish of course. God would never let little old me thwart His work. Still though, at the begining that was what I felt. I guess even now I worry a little though... what if I really did do such a poor job that those who could have been helped were in fact at a disadvantage because they were with me? Still, before I begin on my barrage of questions again I'd better stop now. I did do my best. That I can hold my head up and say. I really did give God all that I could and I know that He more than made up for my weaknesses. Just like the Brother of Jared I gave God rocks and he made light. My brother can and will do the same thing. What a marvelous work missionary work is. It is so big! So amazing when you sit back and think about it. No matter how weak and insignificant we may feel God carries on this great work because it is His. Be it Korea or Seattle, it matters not. What an amazing privlidge it is to be involved in it.

Procrastination is a Lifestyle

Last Final

SO.. today I took my last final--one for a nutrition class that was interesting but the grading was just nit-picky enough to completely disenchant me. Consequently, while I could have studied for hours and hours more than I did, I saved this final for very last so that I wouldn't have to deal with it too horribly long, then I went and took it honestly not even caring a little bit about what score I got. As I stood in line at the religion building to give my test back I seriously contemplated not even checking the score as I figured it really didn't matter too much what it was, but found to my dismay that I did not have the stamina to cash in on my bet but it was a bit of a surprise for me to entertain such mutinous thoughts.

Still, I think it is funny that we as humans tend to delay those important things we hate most until the end becuase it means that we have to deal with them the longest and we usually squander the steam and interest required to complete said hated task long before it is finished. Still, it was nice to turn it in and have done with it. Now I will never have to take that class again. Throwing out the handouts does have come consilitory benefits and Christmas has even more. Yay!

Thanksgiving

When I was in Korea there was a sister who commented, "from October to March it is just one big party in America." Of course her quote was actually in Korean, but there you go. It is true. From Halloween to Easter it is just one big party here in the good old USA, and such was the case this year. It was certainly the most interesting Thanksgiving I've ever had. Normally all of the Perkins people--uncles, cousins, grandparents and everyone go to Mexico and cramp into an ocean side house my grandpa has there. There are lots of kids camped on the floor, (kid usually including anyone who isn't married depending on how many adults are there) at least nine pairs of hands preparing dinner in the kitchen and a parade of exotic pies for dessert, sun burnt babies, three months worth of sand in your hair, and the practically required trip to the local aquarium complete with live seals--much better for kids than the dead ones.

Anyway, that is the established tradition for the Thanksgiving celebration but this year was different. Namely, no Mexico to begin with. In fact, since Heather, Justin, and Trevor went to Wyoming while I stayed to work it was a Thanksgiving without family as well. I was planning on just going to I-HOP for an especially non-traditional meal. Then, right before my plans could be carried out I was talking with a friend who invited me to eat dinner with him. Now before you get any assumptions, keep in mind that he ate dinner at the house of his friend's family except that his friend couldn't make it. So basically, I ate dinner with about twenty seven people that I've never met and one that I knew a little bit. It was a fun event. The only unfortunate part was when I spilled sugary yam sauce on my shirt but I refused to let it bother me and it ended up being alright. All in all, it was a memorable if not quite conventional holiday.

I am so thankful for so many things, only twenty five will serve to be listed here in no particular order.

1- the gospel
2- hot water showers
3- BYU ice cream
4- my family (even when they do abandon me to Wyoming)
5- my testimony
6- a good book on a rainy day with hot chocolate and no homework
7- the human body and how amazing it is
8- the power of music
9- the opportunity to learn to play music
10- the Internet--especially when doing research
11- my job working at the MTC and the missionaries I get to help there
12- my nose
13- my car
14- many happy memories and a few bad ones
15- the six hour version of Pride and Prejudice
17- dark chocolate
18- semi-sweet chocolate
19- milk chocolate
20- many good friends
21- the chance to serve in Korea
22- being from Texas
23- mascara--there is something magic about it that just makes everything alright when it seems like it can't be
24- the Relief Society. What a wonderful establishment
25- my family again. They really are my bestest best friends.

The Beginning

As I sit here in my pajamas, one hand devouring a cake at 1000 calories a bite and one hand trying to make a blog, I am beginning to realize that I actually lead a blissful but largely event-less existence. One that I am happy with but that still one I am fairly certain others will not be interested in. These musings led me to reevaluate my reprehensible impulse to start a blog to broadcast my meandering musings online for everyone to see. Still, glutton for punishment I present my inner thoughts and speculations for your scrutiny. To be honest, they are for me. They are my escape and connection to life for a different day when I will forget it all. I hope you enjoy them but then, you don't need to. They are for me, after all.