And you can use my skin, to bury secrets in,
and I will settle you down.
And at my own suggestion,
I will ask no questions
While I do my thing in the background
But all the time, (all the time)
I'll know.
Fiona Apple 

It was kind of a gloomy day to come back from Spring break and back to school and work. I didn't mind going back to my crazy Spanish Spaceship, but I just had a lot of mixed emotions upon waking and deleting text messages, and no milk to have cereal. My life isn't hard, but I just love to self-pity on the bus. I love to romanticize things that have long been dead, while listening to Fiona, or Bob Dylan, or This American Life, or the National.


I think I was also scared to go to work.


But upon arriving and finding that G was not there, things were certainly brighter. I also have tomorrow off, (due to working New Year's Eve, get a load of that...) and a date planned, and I am now finishing my editing of my paper on Carrie and her various gender problems.

Life does go on after Spring break. 

Two Bryan quotes

"I thought you were going to be a big, fat, bald guy with a beard."
- said to me as I walked into his house (he thought I was going to be his dad)

and

"They couldn't bring sexy back, because it never even left."
- on Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds splitting up

I'm too tired from decadence to really say much more right now.
Spring break has been one big sleep-in/Rocky Road/eating out/TV and movie fest. Sprinkled with lame work-out video sessions. Three days in, and I still haven't started my paper. But! I haven't been drinking either.

I'll tell you what, though. Being a nobody is restful.

Staycation.

I'm technically in Iowa today. But I'm actually in Utah. I ended up playing video games, working out, drinking three or four cups of Tribute Blend which Philip has been bringing home from work. I finally hit the point where I can start enjoying Starbucks again. (5 months, 13 days) After several jumping-jack/Jillian Michaels inflicted injuries, I became subdued enough to meet Celisse for another fancy dinner at "Fancy Restaurant". I got the pumpkin risotto again, because I have been having daydreams about it for weeks.
And none of this happened in Iowa.
I looked at Celisse in the light of the 7 Eleven and I said to her, "I am having a really nice time."
And she said, "I am too."
We watched a movie and ate Rocky Road by Breyers. I don't even like ice cream unless it's soft serve, but this ice cream is good.


I will start my Horror Gender paper tomorrow, I am hoping.
I feel like a bum.
But when I wake up, everything feels too good to be true. But there is a place out there that will give you free underwear of good quality every few months. And this is a reason to stay in America.

"Please forgive me for my sins. Yes I swam dirty waters, but you pushed me in."
-Adele

on sitting in a Harmon's parking lot after a long day.

I let the setting sun light my pages, and read until the street lamps came on. I'm not trying to be poetic, I was just killing time waiting for Celisse to get off work. Numbers is not really poetic. It's kind of graphic though. God just swallowed some dudes up into the earth. And all their stuff. No big deal. And I was like, Whoa God. I'm going to try to not make You that mad at me.

I haven't had an alcoholic beverage in 8 days. I quit out of frugality, mostly, and in hopes of losing weight faster. I haven't really noticed a difference, but I'm a little more awake at night to get stuff done.

Out here, it gets to be that everyone is celebrating, all the time. Which is not bad, to celebrate. But we're all spending too much money on eating out, or bottles of Sailor Jerry. In these United States, we are constantly hosting these holidays. Or I mean, looking for holidays. I feel, anymore, like I don't even have time to prepare because of the frequency of these holidays.
I should have read one of Joyce's Dubliners stories for St. Patrick's day.
I should have sent out more Valentines.
I meant to give something up for lent (I always do), but here I am, still finding myself with a mouth full of Girl Scout cookies every time the phone rings. 
And I can't really remember what the Cinco de Mayo is celebrating, but I want to be there. I mostly want to be eating Mexican food and I even want to make it to throw colors this year for Holi. I want to do this kind of partying more than the Don Draper kind of partying, I tell myself.

But in that parking lot, I realized how fast time flew by today.
Life is so short and painful, and fascinating.
I can't wait to meet Jesus and see all the puzzle pieces put together, and feel real love.

a tired hello


This is the first year I've actually liked the Daylight Savings Switch.


At Starbucks, I never worked past 3pm, so the light didn't matter. But now, when it's five o clock, and it looks like 3pm, that is a pretty cool thing.

Everything is becoming very real, now. 
I'm missing some clients. I'm missing some coworkers. 
I'm trying to think how to tell G without being rude, but also to let her know I have valid reasons for leaving.


I'm trying to figure out what a month away from my Utah family (blood and brethren) will feel like.


It's big. It's scary in a breathtaking way. 
I listen to the clock tick at night.
My God, who is so much bigger than I am, please make my seconds count.




"I need you so much closer."
-DCFC

you spill jack and coke on my collar. I melt like a witch and scream
I'm so sorry for everything.
-The National

I have the bad feeling in my gut. The kind like you get during a horror movie. I found a huge mistake that I think is my fault, at work, at the end of the day. And so what do I do? I leave it for tomorrow because there are a thousand other problems on my desk to fix before six.

I don't want to have a desk anymore.

I don't want the water-cooler-office thing anymore. I don't want the men coming in, and being grateful that they got in my line. I don't want to make anymore calls to people who don't want to hear from me.

But I am going to make this work as long as I can. Because in the end, my reward is this.

Which is better than........anything.

I just watched The Social Network since I had the afternoon off of work, and can I tell you


I wish that college was really like that.
I mean I know that college is really like that somewhere, but I wish I'd gotten to be that somewhere. In really old dorm buildings. The kind with old doorknobs. To have fellow students who were trying to live up to the name of the college. 


I sat there thinking, that maybe if I'd gotten to live my life over again, or at least the past four years, I might have taken out loans and gone somewhere really great.  Not worked my way through.


I guess God's idea was for me to stay here, and go to a suitcase college. But I know it also means He can pick me up and move me somewhere else just as easily.
I imagine Him doing it with tweezers, like on Roller Coaster Tycoon. Except, hopefully he doesn't drop me in a lake, like I would do with my park visitors. I'd be liable to drown.

Do you ever have those moments, when your friend remembers something really YOU, about you, and you didn't think she/he would, but then it just popped out of their mouth in front of your other friends?

And then you realize why you always forgive them for the bad crap they do to you.
And then there is love in your heart.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more.

By Friday, I'm usually so exhausted that my steering wheel directs me home instead of anywhere I probably should be.

I should get out more, for single-white-female-age-twenty-two. Oscar says, "Come dance with me." And it was like, when did you come to know my name so well? I should be at Alison's birthday party. I should have multiplied my time.

But instead, I pour myself a drink, eat my sisters' home made soup and lobster shaped biscuits, and watch Drunk History with Philip. My phone turns itself off, as it permits itself to do because it is old.

I find myself, here, Sharon. Admitting these things to you.
I admit that the admirers I took in my youth are married and are having children now.
I admit that I rub my arms on perfume samples in magazines, sometimes.
I admit to avoiding going out because of the rising prices of fuel.
I admit that I have dreams involving Fred Armisen showing up to church more than fortnightly.
And I admit that I will never buy a Mac because I am too old to bend to change, and too lazy to learn other technology.

And the thing I can never admit to the hipsters is that: I took a shower every day this week.

Forgive me Sharon. I should keep these things to myself.

where.but.for.the.grace.of.God.go.I.

One thing about worry is, that if you really never worried, you would lose that high--the rush--when all your fears are relieved.

Last night, after working with my Spanish partner via Google Chat to work out what we thought we'd do in our reviews this morning, I'm like, oh my gosh. we are going to fail. But then I couldn't find my bus pass card, and I worried about it til I fell asleep, and then when my alarm went off this morning, I hit snooze, and the first thing I was thinking was what I was going to say to the bus driver, and I have no idea how to actually pay for bus fare, and get transfer tickets and all that because students tap on and tap off.

BUT I found the pass in my jeans pocket, which I had already checked last night. I even caught the early bus and had time to rehearse my questions and answers in Spanish before my partner got there and I felt pretty good about it after it was over.

I started jumping up and down in front of the library, and Ashley just laughed. She doesn't understand relief. She is a med student. There is always another test to take.

And Wednesday is my comp-day so I don't have to work. I got home, ate Reese's cereal and drank coffee and ate a whole pound of strawberries and watched Be Kind Rewind. It was pretty cute.
Then I watched a couple episodes of You're Cut Off and went to the gym.

I am extremely happy. God is good. I'm starting to unwind from all of the running around. I feel ridiculously blessed.