NaNoWriMo

November is NaNoWriMo, and today, in a hazy fit of motivation and what I thought might be creativity (but I now recognize as sleepiness), I decided to start! Immediately!

For those of you who aren't my Englishy friends pretentiously posting about NaNoWriMo on your Facebook wall, it's National Novel Writing Month, and you try to write a novel in November (aka, you try to write 50,000 words).

So I sat down at my computer, I opened a Word document (I literally don't think I've opened that program since I converted my masters thesis to a PDF for final submission), and I started writing words.

And I'm not going to lie, as I was typing my first words, it felt crazy easy. 1,600ish words a day? No problem. I figured a wave of inspiration would fall upon me, and I would type furiously through some mess of a story. And within an hour I could get caught up on my writing for the entire first week of November.

I mean, it's just words and stories and typing. And it was probably going to be a masterpiece, and I would get randomly discovered and fulfill my dream of becoming an author that scholarly critics write papers about, and I could scorn them for being critics rather than creators (was I really an English major?).

But by sentence two I was so exhausted. Words? Stories? Typing? So much work. I was able to muster 177 words in 45 minutes. And then gap.com was calling my name. Sorry, brain.

NaNoWriMo, we might just have to chalk this up to an epic fail.

But, at least we now have the below amusing comparison between the start of my NaNoWriMo novel in 2007(!) and my measly opening paragraphs in 2012. (Side note: should I be concerned that the first thing that came to me in 2012 was the image of an old woman sitting in a hoarder's house?)

2007
Kerrie slapped the jam side of the sandwich down and sliced the knife through the center before sealing the halves into a plastic bag. It had come again—the first day of school. Grabbing the rest of her lunch and her backpack, Kerrie rushed out to the bus stop. She always felt silly with her packed lunch; after all, she was in middle school now, but her mom insisted that cafeteria food is the root of all evils in America, and the ritual had become habit. So Kerrie was still eating peanut butter and jelly in the eighth grade. She was known for it, in fact.

2012
The blinds were cracked slightly, letting the cold light glow the specks of dust in the air. The large piles of stuff grew the edges of the room into amorphous shapes, disrupting the smooth symmetry of corners and floors and ceilings. Patches of color revealed distinct objects in the wallpaper of stuff lining the room: yellow spines of National Geographics, blue opaque plastic bins, the stale form of crushed cardboard boxes shoved between an armoir and a rocking chair, a large bolt of brown fabric with tiny polka dots and frayed edging weaving its way between a crushed Monopoly box and a backgammon board with a large crack down the center.

A little lamp with an orange and blue plaid shade propped up on an ironing board glows warmly in the middle of the room, and a small lady sits in the rocking chair, slowly oscillating back and forth as the sides of the rocking chair brush against the cardboard boxes wedged beside. Swish. Swoosh.

This is the night that the world is going to end.

Summer Cookin'

Today finally feels like summer. It was in the 80s here, I wore shorts and flip flops all day long, and I passed a lemonade stand while driving. Plus, the air had the slightest hint of mowed grass and Elmer's glue sticks.

It was the perfect weather to sit on my back deck and brainstorm all of the reasons that I'm convinced my neighbors are cooking meth.

I have some really compelling evidence.

First, when I was in high school one of my friends (who has a little more drug knowledge than me) casually opened the lid of my neighbor's garbage can one day while we were walking to my house. He glanced in, chuckled, and said something about drugs. I don't know what he saw, and I don't know what drugs he was referring to, and I don't know what drug knowledge he really had, but this doesn't not support my thesis that they're cooking. (Double negative!)

Second, they are hoarders. Their whole yard looks like an untamed jungle, and I can see junk piled up in their windows. My most recent two Google searches suggest that hoarding and substance abuse might be linked. Also, my cousin's drug-busting husband says that it's common for meth cookers to be hoarders. Compelling!

Third, they have a huge white truck parked in their driveway that says "Mobile Wash" in large blue letters. But the truck almost never leaves the driveway. Breaking Bad has taught me that this must be both a traveling meth lab and a fake business through which they launder their meth money. It's the only explanation.

I suppose I should admit that my only meth knowledge comes from wikipedia and Breaking Bad.

As I become more and more convinced that they're cooking, I imagine elaborate sting operations to catch them in the act. Well, by "elaborate" I mostly mean brief, simple and ill-thought out plans. Like calling the number on the mobile wash truck and saying, "hey is this where I can buy some meth?" Or walking up to them while they're outside and saying, "you guys look like the type that could hook a girl up with some meth."

Unfortunately, neither of these plans would work because this childlike, wide-eyed sense of wonder has yet to really wear off

and, more importantly, I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. Do people still call it meth these days? Would a real user call it "glass"? Or "crystal"? Or "ice"? According to wiki these are all possibilities.

I just don't know.

Blog Stats

Almost every single day Sometimes I browse my blog stats because I'm completely obsessed with my blog I'm mildly curious to know who might be reading my blog. And let me tell you, the stats are fascinating.

I guess I should begin by making it very clear that while I secretly wish that thousands of people (or dozens--let's be realistic) were constantly happening upon my blog, falling in love with my awkwardness and social anxiety, and becoming faithful followers, I'm 110% sure that my blog has exactly 9 readers. And most of you are family (thanks for reading, mom!). So, when I say "fascinating," I mostly mean boring and occasionally surprising/entertaining/weird?.

The blog stat I'm most obsessed with is the pageview count. See, blogger keeps track of every time someone goes to your blog, and then it creates a running tally and little graph of the numbers. This information is completely useless to me because a. I don't really see any correlation between the highs and lows of this number and what's going on on my blog, and b. I'm pretty sure half the pageviews are me. But regardless, every time I look at this stats page I become irrationally preoccupied with making the number grow until I achieve ultimate blogger success. (I will get back to you on what this means.) For now, I will tell you that my June numbers were abysmal. It was very sad. It's probably because I posted about things like running, and driving, and drunk people. Sorry team.

Most of the stats are completely meaningless, but mildly interesting in a pause-briefly-to-try-to-find-some-deep-meaning-but-quickly-realize-that-it-doesn't-mean-anything kind of way. Like 60% of my audience views my blog using Safari, 24% using Chrome, and 11% using Firefox. And 64% of my audience uses a Mac, 22% uses windows, and 12% use an iPad, iPhone or iPod. Also, I potentially have a Russian stalker (Привет!) because 216 of my pageviews are from Russia.

And then there's the search keywords. This is a list of things that people actually typed into a Google search, and my blog came up, and they clicked on it (and then immediately navigated back to their Google search once they realized they weren't going to get any legit info). Some highlights:

"don't be glad it's night, be gladys knight"
"college is cruel"
"Kristin Lowe accountant"
"liz lemon yes to love yes to life yes to staying in more"
"prom organiser falls for the long haired bad boy"

My blog is really going places.

Now, all you need to do is go back in your browser, and then come to my blog again. And then do that like 20 times. That way when I pour over my blog stats tonight I can pretend like the pageview peak is a direct reflection of my charm and sparkling personality.

Devil Wears Prada Moments

Some days at work I feel like a rock star. I'll be working on a press release, or designing a document, or sitting in a marketing meeting, and I'll think, dang. Look at me go. I have two college degrees, I got a job, and I just fixed a comma splice. I'm totally nailing this whole life thing.

But. Then someone asks me to run out and pick up their lunch. Or someone asks me to call the hotel they stayed at last week to see if their folder turned up in the lost and found. Or someone snatches the pen off my desk as they hurriedly walk by without any explanation. Or I have to spend six hours booking travel for people who waited until three days before their trip to send me a travel request.

And all of the sudden I feel like Andy from The Devil Wears Prada. Minus the mid-movie makeover and sassy British coworker. And all of my college-level teaching, my international travel, the intellectual scholarly discussions I've had, and the three years I spent as the office coordinator at the Internship Office all fizzle away. And I feel like I'm a frantic, bottom-rung twenty-year-old, just lucky to be gettin' paid.

When I have these Devil Wears Prada moments, I try not to let them get to me. I try not to think about how I have more education than three quarters of the people at my office. I try to tell myself that in the next year or two I will have opportunities to move up within the company. I remind myself that when I was looking for a job, I was just trying to get my foot in the door. And that I'm lucky to have found a job.

The substantive tasks I have go a long way to stave off these feelings. But today I couldn't help myself from having a major DWP moment. I was busy today, really busy. And because everyone assumes that I'm always free and my time is expendable, people kept asking me to do stuff. All day long. And as I was sitting in a restaurant on 21st Ave., waiting for a pick-up order to be ready, after power walking half a mile to get there so I could hurry back to finish my actual work, during what should have been my own lunch break, the waitress getting the food said, "I sure hope one of these meals is for you since you had to pick it up." I smiled and responded, "No, of course not!" She seemed genuinely annoyed, shook her head, and said, "You probably work for a bunch of dudes, don't you."

She gets it. She gets it.

Hi, I'm Kimberly. Hi, I'm Janice.

I'm trying to force myself to blog today.

Over the past couple months, I've gotten into a really good blogging routine, and I don't want to lose my momentum. But I've been sitting in front of my computer for an hour and a half, and my mind is drawing a blank. Then writing that reminded me of the You've Got Mail scene where Meg emails Tom about drawing a blank while trying to insult the "bottom dweller who recently belittled [her] existence."

Then I had to try to find that scene on Youtube. And then I started brainstorming all of my favorite You've Got Mail scenes (of which there are many), and started trying to decide if I like the "lone reed" scene better than the "don't they know they're supposed to have a last name" scene. But really, why choose? 

It has clearly been a productive evening. 

I started two blog posts. However, I only wrote one sentence of each before I realized that one sentence was exactly everything that I had to say on the subject. First, I was going to blog about my recent Craigslist acquisition. For some reason, I wanted to start it in a foreboding way, so I wrote the following sentence: "I broke the cardinal rule of Craigslist: I responded to a posting and went to a man's apartment in downtown Portland completely alone." After staring at that sentence for at least 20 minutes (and by "stare" I mostly mean I slowly wandered away from the blogger tab, and meandered onto my Pinterest bookmark. Then the Askmormongirl bookmark. And Hello Giggles). And then I came back and read my Craigslist sentence, felt a sinking feeling (it was somewhere between the first sentence of a really crappy mystery novel, and an entry from a 10th grader's creative writing journal), and immediately deleted it. Then I started typing about Pinterest. Real stream of consciousness stuff, hoping that something amazing and insightful would boil to the surface. All my English teachers lied to me--free writing sucks. 

Deleted that too. 

Then I turned to a tried-and-true method of prewriting: I googled "I'm sitting in front of my computer trying to think of something to blog about, and nothing is coming to mind. What should I do?" Which is how I ended up on the 195 Hilarious and Inspirational Facebook Status Updates. Which was clearly written and compiled by 14-year-olds. 

This made me sad to be human, and sucked all of the writing life out of me. But at least we can all sleep easy knowing that the following is one of the most inspirational Facebook status updates ever: "I must be addicted to smiling and laughing. I don't believe I've ever said to someone, 'Please don't do or say anything funny, I'm just not in the mood for happiness right now!'"

Thanks, Kimberly! Or was it Janice?

Dear Mindi

In high school I had a YW leader introduce me to the show Felicity. Her name was Mindi, and she had all four seasons on DVD, so I would spend long Saturday afternoons at her apartment watching episode after episode. I love Felicity. I love her over-sized sweaters, her blue converse, her awkwardness, her borderline stalker behavior, her infamous season two haircut, her love of Sarah McLachlan, and her endless Ben/Noel debate. My favorite over-the-top-dramatic-but-incredibly-endearing aspect of Felicity is the tapes that Felicity sends to Sally. Sally was her high school French tutor, and Felicity has never been able to talk to anyone the way she talks to Sally. So instead of writing, she records cassette tapes and sends them in the mail. She always starts her tapes "Dear Sally."

In the middle of my Senior year of high school, Mindi moved to Tehachapi, California. After Mindi left, I was really tempted to start sending her tapes, but I felt silly blatantly recreating the world of Felicity. (Or maybe I didn't have a tape recorder.) So instead, I sent her a series of "Dear Mindi" letters. Maybe it's because I've been watching My So Called Life, or because I've been listening to my nostalgia-infused playlist on the way to work, or because I'm back living in the place I grew up, but I've recently been preoccupied with my high school days. At the risk of revealing how silly and emotional I was during high school, I'm going to share a Dear Mindi letter.

Imagine that your laptop is a clunky gray desktop, put on some Sarah McLachlan, eat a pizza pocket, get out your high school yearbooks, and enjoy this lovely blast from the past.

Dear Mindi,

Tomorrow I turn 18 and in 3 weeks I graduate and in 3 months I'll be a freshman in college. I can't imagine actually being done with high school. No more 6 period days where the classes are easy, but you still feel challenged. And all your teachers know your name, and know you're a good student. No more complete lack of responsibility, and no more Mt. View. No more seeing my friends every day and soon no more Vancouver. It's sad, and overwhelming. So many things are changing and life will never be the same. I'll move on and forget a lot of my high school days, and the sad days and the memories will blur into a blob of "high school" that will seem meaningless and so long ago. And I don't know how I feel about it all. I'm excited and I hate it and I'm nervous. But most of all, I hate this limbo phase where change is looming right ahead, and I know it's coming, so everything seems bittersweet. I feel carefree, but at the same time everything is tainted with the knowledge that I know it will be over soon.

It feels like all of high school I've been waiting to get out. I've been waiting to move on and be an adult and live. And now I'm almost there, and I want to go back and be kid. I don't want to go to college. It's like passing through doors that lock right behind you. You can't go back. Maybe I have control issues. I want to be able to choose. But time kind of takes the choice away. And I know college isn't really adulthood yet. But it feels like I'm giving a lot up. And I'll have to take on a lot of new things and independence. I really thought I would act differently to all this change. I thought I would be strong and indifferent and ready for what next year will bring. But I'm the opposite. I'm going a little haywire as it all becomes real.

My life has been consistent for the past 18 years. And now I feel that after this change, more change is just going to come, and I'll constantly be saying hello and goodbye to people and things I'm a part of. I need more consistency. Life really will never be the same, and it's all work and a challenge. It's like stairs leading up higher and higher and sometimes you reach landings and can rest, but ultimately you keep climbing and climbing. You never feel like you've made it, like you can just stop. But I guess stopping would be boring, and you wouldn't learn anything if you weren't going anywhere or doing anything. It just drains the energy out of me thinking about how uphill life is, and it's not going to change. But hopefully I'll change and be better at dealing with it.

All of these realizations are things I've known in the back of my mind. But until now they haven't really affected me, and I'm starting to realize that they are really true. It's so different to have knowledge floating around in your head than it is to really know it's true from experience. I feel like I have a lot of knowledge floating in my mind, but I don't know a lot of things. Does that make sense? So I could spew advice to myself about how to deal with certain things because I know that it will all turn out for the best in the end, but I really don't know that.

I think one of the hardest parts of leaving high school behind is the feeling that I haven't changed anything or done anything with the past four years. I don't feel really sad to say goodbye to friends, but it's almost sadder to know you don't really have anyone to say goodbye to. The past two years I've been floating in and out of groups of friends, which has been fun and a lot less drama. But in the end, I don't feel any strong connection . . . I feel easily forgettable. I just hope that all the people that I will remember will remember me too. I really hope they do. All of my best friends and the teachers that I have loved and the people I had long conversations with. I just want them to remember, so it doesn't feel like it never happened.

I'm being silly and sentimental, and I don't care. I'm too many emotions right now. I just want to fast forward to next year when BYU will be home, and this will feel like a long time ago. I can't imagine walking across the stage at graduation. And that feeling of everything being so final. What was it like for you? Were you as crazy as I am now? I need to feel sane about this.

In one hour and ten minutes I'm legally an adult.

Love,
Kristin

Ping-Pong

There are two types of people at my work: those who play ping-pong and those who do not.

Those who don't play mostly forget that the ping-pong table exists. They use it as a place to put their stuff while they pour their coffee or heat up their lunch. They don't give it a moment's notice as they pass it on their way to grab a granola bar or trail mix from the snack table. To them, the tap-tap tap-tap of the hollow ball blends seamlessly into the background music and sounds of conversations and phones ringing.

But make no mistake about it, those who do ping-pong are not messing around. They own their own paddles. They own cases for their paddles with zips and padding. There is trash talking. Layers of clothing are removed. Sweat is involved. They're good.

And I want in.

I don't know if it's because I sit right next to the ping-pong table. Or if it's my obsession with this movie (which is amazing, btw). Or if it's my crazy-competitive nature. Or if it's because I still feel a little bit on the outside of things. But I have an irrational need to become a ping-ponger. It has been the sole preoccupation of my spare time--I have spent the past two and a half weeks observing the ping-pong scene, trying to figure out how to make this happen.

My first problem is that I'm not very good. And it's kind of a boys club. If I were to ask someone to play with me, I would immediately feel like the damsel in distress. Oh kind sir, I am absolutely helpless when it comes to ping-pong--would you please show me how it all works? Oh this is what they call a paddle? I want to be taken seriously because, sure, someone would have to familiarize me with the rules since I haven't played ping-pong since I was a 14-year-old boy (read: never), and I would need some practice, but I'm very coordinated. And I catch on quickly. And I have a mean tennis forehand that I think would translate famously to ping-pong.

My second problem is that I don't really understand how games are initiated. Are there rules about who you ask to play? If you're really bad, is it taboo to ask someone really good? Is there some sort of underground tournament that I would be disrupting if I were to initiate a game? Is ping-pong time so precious that someone would be intensely annoyed to waste their time playing a newbie? Mostly I envision a game initiation going something like this

Me: Hey X, want to play ping-pong?
X: Ha!

Or worse

Me: Hey X, want to play ping-pong?
X: Uh, sure. I guess. (wince.)

I'm about three weeks in, and I think I've almost worked up the courage to ask someone to play tomorrow. Or maybe Friday. Or maybe 2013. 2013 seems like a great ping-pong year for me.

Sleep

I sometimes like to joke that I haven't woken up before 7am since 2004. I probably have. I'm sure there were some early mornings in college where I woke up at 5am or 6am to finish homework for an 8am class. Or to study for finals. Or woke up early to catch a flight or to drive someone to the airport. Sure I can't remember any of those days at the moment, but they probably happened. But I haven't consistently set my alarm for pre-7am hours in many, many years.

Probably since high school. Sometimes I look back at high school and wonder how I maintained my sleep schedule. High school starts so early. Like 7:45am. Even typing that just now I thought to myself, no, I'm just being dramatic--it must be after 8am. So I double-checked my high school's website, and first period really starts at 7:45am. And for a couple of years I took 0-period seminary, so I was at school by 6:30am. And of course I stayed up past midnight most nights having drama-filled AIM conversations. (Obviously.) How did I survive?

As complainy and lazy as I'm sounding, I've never been one to sleep in. When I was really young, I can remember being the first person awake on Sunday mornings. I would get a bowl of frosted flakes and watch The Bozo Show until other people got up. I'm not sleep crazy. I have never slept the day away, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have slept past 10am. During my masters program, I set my alarm for 9am (on the off-chance that I didn't wake up on my own before then), but I would usually wake up without it around 8. I'm not a napper. I don't crave sleep.

But the biggest shock to getting a full-time job has been waking up early. I leave for work by 7:30am, which means I have been waking up between 6am and 6:30am every day. The part of me that has always wanted to be an early-morning-gets-a-bunch-of-things-done-before-the-rest-of-the-world-wakes-up kind of person loves this. I feel like an adult with my stuff together. The other 98% of me hates this. It's just a little too early for me. And I do mean a little. 7:30am would be fine. 8am would be fantastic. But there's something about the pre-7am hours that terrify me. I never feel fully rested. And I don't trust myself enough in the pre-7am hours to fully grasp the importance of waking up. I'm always on the brink of completely ignoring my alarm and fading back into a wonderful heavy sleep without a care in the world. Pre-7am, nothing feels more important than resting. Not beating traffic. Not being responsible. Not keeping my job. Nothing.

Once I get out of bed and shower, the heavy feeling in my eyes starts to dissipate. I slowly slip into my professional and responsible mode. But the 10 minutes right after my alarm goes off, when I'm lying in bed trying to will my legs to swing over the side of the bed and fighting to keep my eyelids open, are the most distressing and disorienting minutes of my day.

Spirit Airlines: A Report

I'm alive. And I made it to Vegas.

Because I only had 12"x14"x16" of space to pack without being charged for luggage, I began creating a packing list on Monday night for my Wednesday afternoon flight. I started with essentials: my phone/charger and my Chi. And I continued my list in descending order of importance with underwear and toothbrush high on the list and an extra pair of flats and my camera low on the list. My plan was to pack in order of the list to ensure that the high priority items made it in while more expendable items could potentially be left behind. Through a combination of tightly compressed Ziploc bags and meticulously rolled clothing, I fit everything on my list into my 7"x10"x12" duffel, including my 7"x4"x6" camera bag. (I was not taking any chances with their luggage policy). To be fair, I should note that I was visiting all three of my sisters, so I would have plenty of access to things like shampoo and blow dryers.

With nothing but my duffel in hand and with my license and boarding pass in my back pocket, I walked into the airport. (Btw, it's a good thing I printed my boarding pass at home because it would have been $5 to print it at the Spirit desk and $2 at a kiosk.) Flying doesn't make me nervous. And aside from tiring me out, traveling doesn't phase me much. But I was nervous as I got in line at security. Nervous that within the past 45 minutes Spirit airlines had changed their baggage policy. Nervous that the gate my plane was supposed to depart from didn't actually exist. And nervous that I was never going to make it to Vegas.

I quickly went through security and made it to gate D2 (which does exist!), and sat down to observe the other people flying Spirit Airlines. I began feeling better about things. The person at the gate desk announced that the flight would be delayed thirty minutes, but I mostly expected this. It was kind of a nice reassurance that my flight was cheap for a reason but that reason wasn't that I was going to be pushed out of the plane while flying over Oregon. So I got comfortable in my seat, put on an episode of Downton Abbey on my iPod, and waited to board the plane.

As they called for Zone 3 boarding, a final wave of nervousness passed over me. Would I, in fact, be able to walk onto the plane without paying a dime for this small carry on? I patted the sides of my bag to make it look as slim as possible, picked it up by the handles, fished my boarding pass out of my back pocket, and slowly inched my way forward in line. I felt like I was trying to trick them. Like at any moment someone was going to turn a burning red strobe light on me and bellow "You really thought we were going to let anyone take anything on this plane for free?" Maniacal laugh. I handed my boarding pass to the employee. She took it. Smiled. And said "enjoy your flight." I breathed a sigh of relief.

I found my seat in 21E (a middle seat, of course), and settled down next to a genial/saucy woman reading a Hum 105 packet and an older woman reading Revelations. By "settled" I mostly mean that I squeezed my way into my seat in unnatural angles, shoved (with great force) my carry on under the seat, and nestled my knees against the seat in front of me. Yes, my knees hit the seat in front of me. I am 5'5". But aside from not being able to move more than 2" in any direction for two hours, and getting pitched a credit card offer, and almost throwing up multiple times during the landing, I'd call the flight a huge success.

And I get to do it all again Tuesday morning.

Fruits and Vegetables

This is the tragic and harrowing story of how I ended up eating only fruits and vegetables for fourteen days.

It all started at the BYU Internship Office. I worked as the office coordinator of the Internship Office for a little over three years, and my boss, being the amazingly wonderful woman that she is, avidly fed my love for TV and movies. In my first year, we would tentatively discuss movies we had seen, TV we liked. By year two, we hit our stride and became incredibly familiar with each others' tastes. We talked about everything we were watching--movies, Netflix streaming, the Thursday night comedy line-up. She got me hooked on Damages, she let me borrow multiple seasons of Lost, and she was always ready to have in-depth discussions after each episode of Mad Men and The Bachelor.

When she started recommending documentaries, I was skeptical. It's not that I didn't like documentaries. I liked the idea of liking documentaries. But the thought of actually giving my attention to a documentary for two hours rather than watching, say, six episodes of Friends, or two and a half episodes of Friday Night Lights, or one completely mindless romantic comedy just never seemed to win out in the moment of decision. But, given her track record, I was willing to give her suggestions a chance. The first documentary she recommended was Catfish. I dutifully put it in my Netflix queue and waited for it to arrive. When it came, I wished that it were anything else. Anything. After a long day of school and work, I just wanted to relax. Almost 100% motivated by my need to return the disc in order to expedite the arrival of the next Gossip Girl disc, I watched it that night. I would give it 15 minutes. "I tried that movie you recommended, but it just didn't really hold my interest," I would tell my boss. It started slow. And it took a couple minutes to get in the documentary zone. But then I was hooked. I was hooked because I hadn't seen it before and because, unlike a mindless romantic comedy, I had no idea what to expect. It was fascinating and still entertaining in a lazy kind of way.

I then proceeded to add 87 documentaries to my Netflix queue. I watched popular documentaries like Waiting for Superman, Food Inc., Man on Wire, The September Issue, Helvetica, and Velentino: The Last Emperor. And I watched completely random documentaries that I had never heard of like Wasteland, King Corn, Tapped, Herb and Dorothy, Between the Folds, Dear Zachary, Mugabe and the White African, Triage, Pressure Cooker, Dive!, Bill Cunningham New York, The Lottery, and Objectified. As it turns out, I love watching documentaries. Some are silly, some are beautiful, some are really preachy, some are emotional, and some are informative, but they're all entertaining.

Since leaving BYU and quitting Netflix, my documentary love has waned. I quickly fell back into comfortable patterns of Hulu TV and re-watching Gilmore Girls and 30 Rock. My parents joined Netflix a month ago (fueled by our need to watch season 1 of Downton Abbey), and as I built up their queue, I added some documentaries. Thirteen days ago, I decided to rekindle my love for documentaries, and I clicked on Forks Over Knives. To make a long story short (or, to turn 96 minutes into a few sentences), it ultimately argues that there's a strong correlation between dairy/meat consumption and certain types of cancer, that we're all going to die from preservatives, and that the best approach to a healthy life is to eat mainly fruits and vegetables. You sleep better, it said. You have more energy, it said. Your health problems diminish, it said.

Since I'm convinced I have a severe case of insomnia, and since I've been worried for a while now that my blood system has been completely replaced with Red Vines, I decided to try this out. For fourteen days I would only eat fruits, vegetables, rice, and my mom's homemade granola. I announced this to my parents at dinner. My mom was amused. She tried to remember the last time she had seen me eat either a fruit or a vegetable. I tried to remember too. "I ate that apple that one time. You remember?" I said. This was going to be tough. But now that I had announced my plan to the amusement of my parents, I had to stick with it.

The first day was good. I was motivated and kind of entranced by this new world of fruits and vegetables. Oh, you can get full by eating a ton of vegetables. Strawberries are delicious if you're starving and your other option is lettuce. Anything is palatable if it's blended with berries. These were among some of my finer discoveries. Some discouraging discoveries: it's exhausting to prepare food for every meal, I will always hate the texture of bananas no matter how hungry I am, and I can not stop thinking about delicious food. I think about Twizzlers. I think about fruit snacks. I think about bread (all the time). I think about Arby's curly fries. I think about cheese. I especially think about Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Blizzards.

Day one was good. Day two was fine. Day three was bearable. But by day four I was tired. I was tired of granola. Tired of sugar-less smoothies. So tired of tasteless stir fry. I am now on day thirteen.

And honestly, here at day thirteen, I don't know what to think. I maybe sleep a little better. I definitely feel healthier. I feel hungrier. Sometimes I hate the idea of eating another piece of broccoli. And sometimes I love that my limited food selection makes meal choices really easy. Sometimes I feel like I have a lot of energy, like I'm losing weight, and like I've got my life together like a normal adult. And sometimes I feel like I'm about to break and eat five Blizzards and never touch another vegetable again.

But mostly, I'm incredibly curious to see what I do at the end of day fourteen.

Facebook Timeline

I did it. I embraced Facebook timeline.

I know what you're thinking. I was thinking it too. It's pointless. It's confusing. It just takes something that works and makes it different enough to be a hassle. Every time I Facebook stalked my way onto a profile with Facebook timeline, I was overcome with mixed feelings. And by "mixed feelings" I mainly mean rage and confusion. Why is this picture so big? Where is the wall? Why can't I just click on "info" and "photos" on the left? What is the world coming to? I usually gave up within 7 seconds and clicked back to the old Facebook. It was such a relief to navigate back to a familiar profile page with the large profile picture solidly on the top left and the wall of posts cleanly in one place. All was right with the world again.

So last night when I signed onto Facebook and the top section of my screen had the option to switch to Facebook timeline, I almost immediately clicked on the "x" to close the window. But in attempts to adopt an embrace-change-even-if-it's-meaningless attitude, I daringly clicked on the switch-to-timeline-now button. I shuddered as my very own profile appeared and transformed into this foreign monster. My profile picture was there. My posts were still there. My info was still there. But everything had moved, and it wanted me to upload an absurd "cover" picture to loom at the top of it all. But I couldn't go back. There was nothing for me to do but embrace it.

This isn't the first time that Facebook has changed. Remember when profiles didn't have the reel of photos at the top? And there were tabs for wall, info, and photos? And when status updates directly followed your name so you would post things like "Kristin Lowe likes rainy days" instead of "I like rainy days"? When changes first happen, I always feel outraged. How dare they think they can change how I do things. Do they really think they can make it better? And it is a minor inconvenience, and sometimes new designs have flaws. But within 24 hours, I always seamlessly adapt to the new and settle back into a Facebook routine.

So, I uploaded a "cover" and wandered around my new profile. Within about three minutes it all made perfect sense. Oh that's where all my information is. Oh that's why the wall is organized like this. Oh that's where my TV interests have been hiding. Some things seem like improvements like the way that photos, friends and likes are organized at the top, and some things take some getting used to like the way the wall is organized, and some things feel silly like the "cover" at the top of the profile. But overall, it feels like a fresh new Facebook.

And as I wandered a little more, I clicked on "maps" and found the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. Well, maybe not the coolest. But probably somewhere between Double Stuf Golden Oreos and informal/impromptu dance parties on TV shows. It's a map of the world: you can add pins for places you've been, lived and traveled to. And then these events show up in your timeline on your profile. So, my timeline now shows "Moved to Provo" in 2004, and "Camp Vega" in 2005, and "Traveled to Shanghai, China" in 2006. When you upload photos, you can select a location, and a new pin is automatically added to your map, and when you click the pin you can see the photos. Given my obsession with documenting my life (and with traveling), the simplicity and thoroughness of this timeline made me want to immediately pin every single city I've ever been to. It's a little bit pointless, sure. But I like the option of using Facebook as a way to keep track of where I've been.

Life Archive

I have always had an odd obsession with documenting my life. I have written in a journal since 1994, I have thousands of pictures of me, including hundreds of pictures from my childhood, and I have kept ticket stubs, school IDs, stacks and stacks of school assignments, wood cookies from camp, paintings, drawings, spiral-bound friendship notebooks, notes from friends, foreign money, hotel keys, cards from friends, collections of friends' school/homecoming/prom pictures, smashed pennies, name tags, and Disneyland maps. I'm sure that part of this obsession stems from a million Young Women lessons on journaling/family history/scrapbooking, but part of it comes from this weird sense that if I don't document it, no one will.

In the past couple years, I have become less sentimental. I rarely keep a journal. I don't think twice about tossing ticket stubs and deleting pictures that I don't like. And I've thrown a lot of stuff away. Granted, by "throw stuff away" I mostly mean I scanned all of my school work, school IDs, notes from friends, and ticket stubs and disposed of the original copies. Some gems:

But I've largely lost my sense of urgency to record everything about my day-to-day actions and my minute-by-minute feelings on everything. Partly, so much of my life happens online (email, google calendar, facebook, twitter, blogger, Pinterest), that it feels redundant to supplement my unconscious www trail. But mostly, while I used to think that every little thing that I had ever written, created, seen, or been to was some key to piecing my life back together on the off-chance that I want to look back and try to make sense of it all, now I think that a. very few things matter, b. I have absolutely no interest in looking at my life as some sort of archive, and c. almost 97% of everything I wrote between the ages of 10 to 23 is super embarrassing.

Exhibit A: my Opendiary from high school. You remember Opendiary (RIP?). It was the less trashy, but equally dramatic, Livejournal. Before I deleted my account, I copy/pasted my opendiary into a word document. As I started writing this blog post I decided to read it. I thought it would be amusing and endearing in a silly, high school kind of way. And it sort of was. Except I would replace "amusing" with "horrifying" and "endearing" with "annoying." I'm sure I'm being a little harsh to my 14-year-old self, and maybe if I wait 30 years and read it again I'll have more distance to see it as humorous, but it first made me want to take a red pen to it and scream CAPITALIZE "i" and use some punctuation other than ".. . ." and second reminded me that not all writing has use and meaning.

Spirit Airlines

My little sisters are visiting my older sister in Vegas at the beginning of March, and, to make a sisters weekend of it, I really wanted to join. I began by checking flights on Southwest--the tried-and-true airline for those who wish to sacrifice comfort and dignity for a cheap flight. When I discovered that the very cheapest Southwest flight was going to be $234, I was overcome with utter despondence. This isn't an outrageous price to pay to travel 1,000 miles, but when you don't have any way to replenish your money, the thought of over $200 leaving your bank account is painful. (Like I'm 8 again with a $4/month allowance saving up for an impossibly expensive sticker book. Except I don't even get $4/month anymore. Let's not linger on this thought.)

Despite being in the depths of despair having little hope of finding a cheaper flight, I decided to check Travelocity. I typed in my airports, selected dates, and clicked the "+/- 3 days" button to check the surrounding days for cheaper flights. My results loaded. My heart began pounding: the top option listed a flight for $127.60. Could this be true? I immediately began searching for the catch. This must be a one-way price masquerading as a round-trip fare. I selected the flight and clicked through to payment to make sure. It was, in fact, a roundtrip fare. A non-stop round-trip fare at that.

Then I looked at the airline.

Spirit Airlines. Spirit Airlines? I see. The catch is that this is a fake airline with an insanely cheap made-up fare to trick me into giving them personal information. I would buy my ticket, and they would send me a confirmation email that says, "Gotcha sucker!" and then they would steal my identity. I was sure of it.

I googled "Spirit Airlines," thoroughly expecting either "No Results Containing Your Search Terms," or pages and pages of "DO NOT BUY FROM SPIRIT AIRLINES--IT'S A SCAM." Shockingly, the first result of the search was spirit.com, a website for this supposed "Spirit Airlines." Either they're taking this scam one step too far, or they're actually a legit airline. I clicked on their website. Decent design. Text fields to search flights. An "About Us" page. Apparently they're the real deal. Not only do they seem legit, but when I searched for the same flight on their site, the total was $117.60. $10 cheaper--I could buy this flight and a sticker book.

Before I officially bought my ticket, I decided to investigate reviews of Spirit Airlines. The first telling sign was that it received under 2/5 stars. Complaints ranged from uncomfortable seats ("kept feeling metal on my spine") to poor service ("Flight attendants were rude and yelling at people"). Metal seats and a maniacal staff. The cheapness of the flight was now making complete sense. But I was undeterred. As long as I make it to and from Las Vegas alive, I can endure anything for a two-hour flight.

As I clicked through to pay for my ticket, additional reasons for the cheapness of my flight became clear. Spirit Airlines functions on an a la carte business model where you pay for everything, from in-flight beverages to pre-picking your seat. This is all great--who needs airplane food or an aisle seat? However, the most significant add-on is luggage. Spirit Airlines charges $30 for all luggage, including carry-ons larger than a tiny backpack.

For a brief moment I was overcome with sadness. Adding $30 to each leg of my trip made the ticket almost $200. But. Then I remembered that I am a packing genius. I lived off one roller suitcase for 7 weeks in the Caribbean. I packed one small carry-on duffel for a two-week Christmas break. I haven't checked luggage for a domestic flight since 2005. I have 12"x14"x16" of space to pack for a six-day trip. I can't remember the last time I was so excited.

So, it's booked. $117. I'm going to Vegas. Though, a small part of me still thinks this story is ultimately going to end in a "Gotcha sucker!" email.

Yes, I know, I'm super ungrateful

This past Sunday right after sacrament meeting, the bishop stood up and announced that everyone should remain in their seats for a brief presentation. I immediately froze and quickly tried to remember the date. Friday was the 10th because I had "Hang out with Ryan and Jon" on my google calendar, making  Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th. February 12th. The Sunday before Valentine's Day. Visions of awkward guys in used-to-be-white shirts and cartoon ties handing out carnations without making eye contact immediately danced through my mind. I hoped with all my heart and soul that I was wrong.

Unfortunately, I was not wrong. I was very right.

The bishop asked all the women to stand(!?). Then a dozen men wandered through the chapel handing out truffles and flowers. My fight-or-flight instincts immediately mobilized, and my eyes darted around for a way to extricate myself from the situation. There was no way out. Nothing to do but wait for a guy, who has never spoken a word to me, definitely doesn't know my name, and will likely never speak to me again, to flash a self-satisfied smile (look how sweet he is for being such a Valentine's Day charmer!) and hand me a generic gift.

To their credit, they were roses and not carnations.

Institute

At the beginning of the week, I resolved to attend institute tonight. I went twice in September and haven't gone since, so this was a big day for me. I talked it over with a friend yesterday, and we confirmed that, yes, this would be the week.

The first roadblock in my resolve was that between yesterday and today, I completely forgot that institute exists. With blissful unawareness, I started my day without a care in the world. Applied to some jobs, watched some Downton. You know, normal weekday stuff. And then my friend texted me at 12:48pm: "So, are you going to institute tonight?" Institute? Oh. It's Wednesday. With now tainted bliss, I responded as half-heartedly as I possibly could: "Oooh. I forgot about it completely. Ummmmm . . . Maybe? It sounds super boring, but it seems like I should start going. You?" See, the idea of being a regular institute goer is way more enticing than the reality of sitting through an hour-and-a-half lesson on Isaiah. To me, my response said "Nope, I'm not going, but don't judge me!" She felt similarly, but she decided to go. We decided to carpool. I was stuck. I tried to remember that this was what I had planned on anyway, but somehow it felt like I was completely tricked into attending.

She got to my house at 6:40pm, we got in my Jeep, and we drove towards the Mt. View Seminary building. When it was time to open the car doors and actually walk inside, we both paused, looked at each other, and considered going home. No, we were already there. We decided to go inside.

As we walked into the room, we were both immediately overcome with terror. The desks were in groups, not rows. This would undoubtedly mean group interaction and discussion. We scouted out the most remote seats and proceeded to analyze our decision to stay. Then the institute teacher approached us, introduced himself, asked for my first and last name, and gave me an information sheet to fill out. There's nothing like an information sheet to say, "Welcome. You're obviously new here, and I want to keep tabs on you." He made us begin by introducing ourselves to our table. Then he called on individuals from each table to introduce the rest of their table. I am deeply opposed to this teaching method (mostly because nothing brings me more anxiety than the looming chance of someone putting me on the spot). This simply would not do. Fifteen minutes in, my friend turned to me and said, "Why didn't we leave when we first got here?" Completely relieved, I said,"I don't know! Do you want to leave now?" Thankfully, and I will treasure her friendship forever for this, she said, "Yes!"

In hushed tones, we planned our escape. She would leave first, with haste and purpose. I would casually wait two minutes and then follow. No explanation to our table. No eye contact with anyone. She slipped out, and I sat at the table casually flipping through my Gospel Library iPod app, trying to mask my gushing anticipation and fear of being found out. It was like the feeling I had when me and some friends at BYU woke up in the middle of the night, broke into a guys' apartment and covered their living room and kitchen in strings and strings of yarn. Two minutes past. I slipped my iPod into my bag, left my blank information sheet on the table, and confidently strode out of the room.

Maybe next week.

Facebook Birthday Envy

All of my birthday experiences confirm that birthdays are just ordinary days on which you happen to get cake and feel super embarrassed while people sing to you. But somehow I always expect my birthday to be amazing. And I feel a little envious when I witness someone else having a truly phenomenal birthday.

I'm not sure why I feel entitled to amazing birthdays because I am not stellar at making other peoples' birthdays special. Occasionally, I write a "Happy birthday, ______!" message on Facebook or attend a birthday party. But I can't remember the last time I bought someone a thoughtful birthday present or mailed someone a card. (I know, I'm sort of awful, aren't I?)

Very rarely, my birthdays-should-be-amazing belief has led me to random bursts of thoughtfulness. In high school, me and my friend Holly planned a surprise birthday picnic for another friend. We selected the perfect park location, arranged rides for everyone (pre-license days), probably baked a cake, and might have even arranged for our parents (and the birthday girl's parents) to write notes excusing us from our class after lunch. It was really quite magical. I also made some homemade birthday cards in high school. Freshman year I made a birthday card for my friend Phil, and senior year he wrote this in my yearbook: "One good memory, the time you made me a belated--or maybe it was the day of my--birthday card. That was something that made my day 4 years ago." And yes, if you must know, I just spent 30 minutes browsing my old yearbooks looking for that quote. But aside from some uncharacteristically thoughtful actions, I've never been amazing with birthdays.

On top of not really deserving amazing birthdays, I am 25. Let's be honest, hoping for amazing birthdays when you're 25 is like still believing in Santa or like hoping that this time you watch Bridge to Terabithia she isn't going to die.

And the truth is, I've always had really solid birthdays. First, I have some amazingly organized relatives who send me cards every single birthday. Usually with $5 (yes, still). After browsing the birthday cards yesterday at WinCo with sections like "Sister from Brother Funny Birthday," "Aunt Religious Birthday," and "Basketball-playing Blond Childhood Best Friend Birthday," I'm, quite frankly, amazed that they can find a fitting card each year. Let alone remember to mail it each May. And every year that I've spent my birthday at home, my mom makes a cake and decorates the kitchen wall with crepe paper, balloons, and happy birthday signs. In elementary school, I had a backwards themed party, a Disney birthday, and a slumber party. In middle school, my friends surprised me after school by taking me to see Mission Impossible II for my 14th birthday. In high school, one of my friends took me to a concert on my 17th birthday. I celebrated my 22nd birthday in London and had a to-die-for grilled cheese sandwich at Borough Market and saw the play Mousetrap. And then there's all the thoughtful cards I've received, the friends who have taken me to dinner or made me cakes, the birthday phone calls, the blog posts and comments, and the personal presents I've been given.

But the birthdays-should-be-phenomenal monster within me still wants something more.

So, when I turned 24 I decided I had to take matters into my own hands. It was, after all, my golden birthday. I started dreaming big, and I decided that the thing that would make my birthday magical would be getting at least 24 happy birthday wishes on Facebook. 24 posts for my 24th birthday on the 24th of May. Magical. So, I told all of my family to make sure to post on my wall, and I refreshed my Facebook throughout the day. Facebook post number one came at 11:36pm on May 23 from Elisa: "Happy birthday (in 24 minutes)! If you were here, I'd make you a cake with skittles on top." At 7:19am on the 24th, my sister posted the sixth birthday wish: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I went out of my way to log on to facebook to try to make your birthday dreams come true." The fifteenth post came at 12:13pm from Kathleen. Things were looking good, but I still wasn't there. Jim posted "Happy Birthday!" at 7:02pm, making a total of 23 posts. Almost there. And finally, at 8:41pm, Stu posted the twenty-fourth post stating, "Id call you instead but I dropped my phone. in the boundary waters. Happy birthday my friend. :)" I had done it. And it was truly a magical birthday. 

But this magical birthday has left some serious damage in its wake because this is at the root of my Facebook birthday envy. Every so often a birthday catches my eye, and I go to the birthday person's Facebook page and count their birthday wishes. And it is always more than 24. And I feel so much envy I can barely contain myself.

TV

I love talking TV. Parks & Rec, Gilmore Girls, Project Runway. You name it. I could talk about TV endlessly (and I probably have with many of you). I like hearing about what people are watching, what new shows they're hooked on, and what they thought about the most recent episode of ______. And, quite honestly, TV is one of the few things that I really keep up on. I could have a conversation about TV with just about anyone, and I would be able to find some common ground.

TV was probably the topic of 81% of the conversations I had with my friends in my English masters program. (Books were probably the topic of 4% of our conversations.) Each year as part of our program, we went to a progressive dinner where we students mingled with the professors from our emphasis. As me and my friend Vilja arrived, we made a pact that we were not going to talk about TV. We would be social, we would be intelligent, and we would discuss things like Heidegger or the tensions inherent in academic freedom. If we got really desperate, we would talk about teaching and tell anecdotes about our students or grading. This was our plan.

We inched our way through the food line, secured our soup and rolls, and bravely sat at a table with a new member of the English department. Almost immediately after introductions, I blurted out, "So, what kind of TV do you like?" I know. It's horrifying how little self control I have. What was even more horrifying was Professor X's response: "I don't own a TV." I was stunned. I stumbled over some question about his current research interests, and I tried to inwardly recover from this blow. I understand the logic behind not owning a TV. In fact, part of me likes the idea of minimizing the intrusion of technology and striving towards a quiet and focused life that doesn't bother itself with Liz Lemon's new boyfriend or who Ben will give a rose to. But it seems like a casual TV knowledge is a necessary aspect of engaging with American culture. Like knowing who the presidential candidates are or who's competing in the super bowl.

So, I guess I should revise my previous statement to say, "I could have a conversation about TV with just about anyone EXCEPT PROFESSOR X, and I would be able to find some common ground." Well, when I moved back to Vancouver a couple months ago, I was determined to find such common viewing ground with my mom. My mom doesn't watch TV. Aside from some sewing shows, a few seasons of the Cosby Show, and a some episodes of Extreme Couponing on TLC, I don't think my mom has spent more than 25 hours in front of the TV.

Until I changed all that.

We started with a few seasons of Gilmore Girls. She had watched some with my younger sister and had liked it, so we finished off the series. Not a major triumph since she was previously interested. Then, after trying out a few shows like Parenthood and Friday Night Lights, I finally got her hooked on something new: Bones. Turns out Temperance Brennan's narcissistic crime solving appeals to all. Over a few months, we watched all available seasons. Most recently, I've made some serious headway with Downton Abbey, which my mom (a hater of period dramas) originally resisted.

And now, after spoiling my mom with the joys of TV on DVD, we have to wait a week or more in between new episodes of both Bones and Downton Abbey. While I'm used to this minor annoyance, my mom is not taking it well. I mostly watch TV at my liesure on Hulu and very rarely follow a show anxiously enough to faithfully watch it on TV during it's allotted weekly time. (I don't have Tivo these days.) But now that my mom is hooked on these shows, she wants to watch them as soon as they are available. So, when we sat down last week at 9pm on Thursday evening to watch Bones and Bones wasn't on, my mom was flabbergasted. I guess before it went on Christmas break it was on at 9pm, but post-Christmas it had changed to 8pm. Since Bones is on Fox, it isn't available on Hulu until 8 days after it's original broadcast. This would not do. And, as the introducer of TV, it seemed to fall to my responsibility to keep better tabs on our shows.

Then fast forward to tonight. My mom and I are finishing up a friendly game of speed scrabble when my mom abruptly pauses and asks, "Isn't Downton Abbey on tonight?" I had forgotten because of my previously noted liesure approach to viewing. I responded, "Oh yeah, we've probably missed it by now."

And my generally very sweet and kind mother responded, "Well, way to go!"

I've created a monster. But at least we've found some common ground.

Snow

At the beginning of the week, I found out that snow was expected for today. With every fiber of my being I believed that it would snow today. And that church would be cancelled. This is very important because I was scheduled to teach today.

Some background. Vancouver is not equipped for snow because it only snows once or twice a year. With the tiniest hint of snow or ice, things pretty much shut down. I remember when school was cancelled for a friendly quarter-inch powder that melted by noon. When I was a Senior, school was cancelled an entire week for an ice storm. I was horrified when I experienced my first Utah winter where everyone is expected to function normally even with a foot of snow on the ground. Snow is for cancelled school and for watching movies all day while drinking cocoa. Not for trudging around in slush. I was ecstatic to return to Vancouver where the response to snow is appropriately dramatic. It was by no means a far-fetched idea that church could be cancelled today.

So, obviously I didn't prepare my lesson all week. Every fiber within me believed that it would not be necessary. I congratulated myself on my luck. I will get to stay home all day watching Anne of Green Gables and I wont have to teach for another month, I thought to myself. Yesterday was cold and crisp and smelled like snow. My inkling was confirmed. It would snow, church would be cancelled, and there would be no need for my lesson. 

As midnight approached last night, my confidence briefly cracked. I grudgingly spent an hour putting together a lesson, knowing that I was wasting my time. I woke up without an alarm at 7:30 in anticipation of the good news. I quickly opened up my blinds and was annoyed to see no snow. I was completely sure that it would come, but it was inconvenient that I couldn't go back to sleep knowing that the snow was already on the ground. At a quarter to 9, my mom knocked on my door and bestowed the good news. I opened my blinds. It was snowing. 

The ground was slowly becoming white, and the crisp air seemed to ensure that the snow was here to stay. Then. Small bits of rain mixed with the snow. 

Then more rain. 

And soon the ground wasn't white at all. I frantically checked the thermometer and opened up google weather for Vancouver. Maybe wet ground was even better because all we needed was a quick freeze and the roads would be impossibly icy. Of course! That was it. Icy roads are much more treacherous than snow-powdered roads. The temperature was 34 degrees. Two degrees colder and the ground would freeze over. Two degrees. I began checking my email, phone and facebook minutely for church updates. Sometimes even the threat of future inclement weather is enough. Everything within me believed that I would get an email/text/facebook message saying that, just to be safe, church would be cancelled. 

Then the temperature went up to 34.8 degrees. Then 35. THEN 36.1 degrees. I almost felt defeated. But, as I was driving to church, I knew that it would snow during the first hour of church, and the Bishop would announce that the rest of church was cancelled. 

He did not. And I gave my lesson. And even as I was standing in front of the classroom, part of me still truly believed that someone was going to interrupt my lesson and send everyone home due to the weather. 

I gave my whole lesson. When I left church the sky was blue and the ground was damp. It is still 36 degrees. 

Waste Not, Want Not

I don't like to own stuff. If I'm not able to move all my stuff quickly and efficiently in one car load, I get a little anxious. Even if I'm not planning to move. It just weighs me down. I can't really explain why. Part of it is that I like everything to have a place and a purpose. An immediate purpose. In my idealist of ideal worlds, I would own a 27-inch iMac, an iPad, an iPhone, a camera, a bed, very basic kitchen supplies, linens, art, and a teeny tiny wardrobe. Nothing more. No board games. No stapler. No swim goggles. I would go completely digital, obviously--all my TV, movies, music and books would be on my computer, iPhone, and iPad. (I would also own disposable items like shampoo and tampons, of course.)

And because of this drive towards nothing, I'm constantly looking to get rid of things. At least once a month, I slowly thumb through my closet trying to pare down my belongings, so that eventually I will only own necessities that I love. Think of how amazing it would be to open your closet and find a handful of basic, clean, well-kept items that you always feel like wearing. Ah, the beauty. So, I slide each hanger along the bar, slowly examining each item, weighing the pros and cons of keeping it. This can take hours. Sometimes getting rid of things is a struggle for me because in addition to loving the idea of owning nothing, I'm also pretty fiscally responsible. The phrase "waste not, want not" has haunted my life. If I get rid of this sweater that I never wear but still fits and is from a store that I love, will I regret it the rest of my life? The cost of keeping this item is zero dollars, but the cost of replacing it is much more, why would I throw it away? I'm not wearing this now, but if I get a different type of job or get invited to this type of event, wouldn't I want something just like this? These are the types of questions that rattle around as I slowly examine my entire wardrobe. My sister has witnessed this. It is a long, and excruciating process full of painful discussion and lots of trying on. And I love every second of it. (Poor Kim.)

In the end, I relearn the same conclusion over and over: there are certain items of clothing that, no matter how much I spent on them, where they came from, or what kind of condition they are in, I will never wear. Ever. And I can't even articulate what it is about these items that makes them utterly unwearable. They just aren't quite right. About a month ago I divided my closet into two sections: "for sure keep," and "probably get rid of." I decided I was going to make myself wear each item in the "probably get rid of" section. I was giving them all one last chance to wow me, and I was giving them this chance because I could still imagine falling in love again with all of these clothes. Not only did I hate putting on these clothes, but I hated them throughout the entire day. They fit fine, they are in fine condition, but I was absolutely itching to take them off. So, I got rid of them. All of them. And I don't regret it. In fact, I can't think of a single item of clothing that I regret getting rid of ever. I can't even remember 98% of the clothes I have owned. And maybe I should have a WWII rationing attitude about use and conservation, but it's 2011. I donate my old clothes that are still in good condition (so they don't fill up landfills), and I buy new ones. If I get a new job or need a specific item for an occasion I'll buy it, and it will be a fresh new addition to my wardrobe that I will love. To me, this is way more realistic (and fun).

Intruder

Last Saturday night I got home at about 10:30. My parents were asleep, of course, because they have the sleeping schedule of an 8/90-year old. I locked the front door behind me, turned off the Christmas lights, turned off the porch light, and walked downstairs to my room. Normal. I waste an hour or so wandering Pinterest/Facebook/Twitter. Then I cross the hall to brush my teeth. As I walk back to my room, I glance down the hallway towards the bedroom and wood shop at the end of the hall and notice the light is on underneath the door of the shop. I go back into my room and pin some more pictures. Then it hits me how weird it is that the shop light is on. No one uses the shop. No one but me is awake. It wasn't on when I first came downstairs, was it? The shop has a door to our backyard, so it's a perfect point of entry for intruders. I grab a heavy glass vase and stand at my bedroom door for five minutes working up the courage to investigate. I look down the hallway and the light is still on in the shop. No way in H am I going to open the shop door, so instead I investigate the rest of the house for suspicious behavior. I slowly walk through each room quickly flipping on light switches and raising my glass vase. No one. All valuables still in place. All doors locked. Someone must have left the light on earlier in the day. Then. As I'm walking back to my room, I look down the hallway and now the light under the door has been dampened, but I can still see light around the frame of the door. Like someone heard me go upstairs and put a towel under the door to block the light. There has to be someone in there.

It's passed midnight now. Maybe one of my parents is doing some midnight wrapping and they don't want me to know? Maybe it's a homeless person who found their way into our house for the night? Maybe it's a band of thieves waiting for the house to go silent before they steal everything? Most likely it's a murderer. They're here to kill me. Or maybe my parents. Maybe they have already killed my parents and they're disposing of the bodies in the shop Dexter-style. I put my ear to the wall of my room, which shares a wall with the shop, and listen for movements. Nothing. They're good. I pace my room. This cannot be ignored. I must open that door. I look around my room for something to protect my vital organs in case they shoot. Nothing! Where is a bullet proof vest when I need one? I have a dish set, but I'm pretty sure that if they shot me while holding a plate over my heart, the pieces of plate shattered by the bullet would act as shrapnel and cause more harm. I keep thinking. Maybe I could talk them out of shooting. Grey's Anatomy has taught me that murderers are less likely to shoot if they know personal information about you. I rehearse. My name is Kristin Lowe, I have six brothers and sisters, I broke my left arm falling out of the tree right outside that window, I have cancer. Apparently lies come more quickly than truth when I'm under pressure. I can't go through that door.

Instead, I text my parents asking if someone is in the shop. Maybe they have their phones next to their bed. I'm hoping that one of them will text back something like "Oh yeah, it's just me doing some nightly work in the shop in complete silence, and I accidentally flung a towel at the door." But no response. At this point, I have only two options: I must open the shop door or I must wake my parents. I decide to wake my parents. (Yes, I know I'm 25, but I'm not made of steel. I'm no Temperance Brennan.) I open my parents' door and both of them are sleeping, ruling out a Dexter-style double murder, but also confirming that it must, in fact, be an intruder in the shop. I wake my mom and tell her I think there's someone downstairs. I explain about the light under the door and my towel theory. My dad jumps into action, goes downstairs and opens the shop door quickly to catch them off guard.

Nothing.

He checks behind all the tools, checks to make sure the door is still locked. No one is there. And boy do I feel silly. But the light under the door? The towel! There is no explanation.