and so this is Tuesday

My baby iPod spit out some good things on shuffle this morning.
This is a blessing of a week. Nothing due, only three shifts at work.

Yesterday, Jayme and I spent the afternoon and most of the night drinking mimosas and watching Amelie and Arrested Development. She is watching AD for her first time, and I was mouthing all of the lines along with the characters, which surprised her. The mimosas weren't strong enough to make us silly, but just sleepy all afternoon. These are the days when I feel so overprivileged.

I need to get back to the gym. I quit caring about muscles over Thanksgiving, and I was eating nonstop tacos all the other days of the weekend. But I'm starting Crossfit in 5 weeks, and I'm terrified.

As I was sitting on the bus today, I was wondering about all the dreams I can't remember when I wake up. Wondering about the content. If they are more dreams about Jeff Bridges. Wondering where the dreams go.

I got a Twitter a few weeks ago, when I was sitting next to Matt in our story telling class, (because he basically told me I should) and while I don't fully understand it, it is kind of fun.

The phenomenon that is happening to me, is that I feel like I have friends that don't know I exist.

I forgot about my Twitter account until I was reading this girl's blog post for Hello Giggles (Annie Stamell) and she was so hilarious. It gave a link to follow her on Twitter, and then I figured out this way to get her Tweets sent to my phone. (I am living in the stone age, I do not have a smart phone. I'm trying to make my dumb phone do smart things.)

So the result is, I get her text/tweets in the middle of the night, or when I wake up in the morning, and it is kind of like having a best friend who texts me all the time, and texts me quality, funny things.



So.
I've worked 19 of the last 28 hours. Three shifts.  I think I just put mini travel shampoo on my hands thinking it was a mini travel lotion. I am very ready to go walk the dog, make some tacos, shower, and nap. The Lord is my strength. There is no other reason I could still be so happy but His love. He just keeps answering prayers, yes, and no, and maybe. He is good to me.

Anthony: One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life.

Bottle Rocket (1996)

It just never gets old for me.

Dignan: Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers - can you see how incredible this is going to be? - hang gliding, come on! 

Monday, you wonderful friend


As I sprawled out over our rocking armchair in the basement, eating cake and drinking coffee for breakfast, and watching some recording of Jason Mraz on Palladia, I thought,


a) I am so glad not to be working nine to five, Monday to Friday anymore.
b) God blesses me immensely.

I got through my horrible vegetable/fruit fast yesterday. I was starving after only three hours of it, and no matter how many veggies I ate, or how much protein they had, it just doesn't fill you like bread or pork chops. I was seeing stars by the time I was reading in my bed that night. And my dad told me at 10:30 that Bill said the meeting for this morning got called off, and that I could eat as much as I want, but I was doing such a good job, and getting so much out of it, that I made it til this morning. I don't know how Arminda did that fast so long, because I'd be dead.

When I first worked at Starbucks, I had this coworker named Jamie. And while she was a little wacky, she kind of inspired me, because she would do these weird challenges. Every year on her birthday she would challenge herself to something crazy that she would have to carry out until her next birthday. One year it was not drinking, one year it was being vegan. Stuff like that.

I thought about her this morning as I ate two pieces of cake with my Christmas Blend coffee, and thought about how Uncle Bill asked us to fast and pray for the church building today and tomorrow morning, and I thought, at the very least, I could just eat fruits and vegetables for the rest of the day and for breakfast tomorrow. (I have a hard enough time not passing out even when I am eating.) So I went to the gym to burn off the cake, and on the way home picked up a whole bunch of stuff that grows from the ground to eat for the rest of the day.

I didn't drink any alcohol last night, even though I thought it would help me sleep better. It's one of my favorite lies I tell myself. And I was really proud when I woke up this morning. I won't have any tonight, either. If I did this vegetable thing twice a month, I think that would be good for my heart and my prayer times with God, and my self control issues.

I don't have a paper to write, and I have two days off of work and school. I think I'm going to catch up on the last six months of movies.

Happy Sunday!

The interview went well.


God could not have blessed me with a better subject. Chad interviewed beautifully, and had really strong points about immigration, and hopefully my professors and classmates will be blown away by his story.

The end of the semester: I can't believe it's already here. It's sad and wonderful.
I'm currently reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude  (Marquez)
Across A Hundred Mountains (Grande)

And finally had pho for the first time in six to eight months, with Celisse, got ice cream cones, and watched Bridesmaids again. It's been a good week.

"I would like a glass of alcohol, please."
-Ellie Kemper's character on Bridesmaids

The Freshmen and Sophomore students at the U keep trying to wear tights in new and unusual ways. But wearing a black dress with red translucent tights just makes you look like a star in a horror movie. And wearing leggings instead of pants is just giving people permission to look at your butt and try to figure out what kind of underwear (if any) you have on.

I am really hepped up today.

I had maybe one cup of coffee, but I feel like I could run ten miles, and I think I'll go try. I had a short shift at work, and now I'm really nervous but excited to interview this guy Chad for my digital storytelling class. I'll post the video after finals, if it's any good. But I haven't met him, and I worry that I'm going to ask the wrong questions or that I will look like a fool trying to set my camera up. It's silly.

I have so much energy that I've been pouring into writing and running around and it's giving me a stomach ache, but I like it. 

I've been sleeping less, but last night I had this dream I was an assistant hit man with Jeff Bridges, and the cast of Community was in our movie. Jeff Bridges and I faked our own deaths in an explosion and hid in this cold dark boiler room of a hotel, and I thought I was going to die while we were asleep, but then I woke up, and made sure all the doors were locked. Even though I was the bad guy.

"In my dreams, I can feel the weight, I can just come clean...

I keep it to myself. I know what it means.

I can't have you...I have dreams."

-Brandi Carlile

My favorite coworker is Elaine, I think. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but Elaine is an exception because she is awesome. I think she is everyone's favorite.

She's a fiery red head, with what I can only describe as a deep California voice. 

"What's open at ten-thirty?" She looks at me, walking out for her lunch.

"La Frontera," Alex says.

Elaine fakes throwing up.

"Subway?" I say.

"That's right, you're a good woman, Rachel. I forgot about that."

"You forgot I was a good woman? Or about Subway?" I ask her, but she's already gone. I walk back to the other side of the pastry case and re-brew coffee.

The phone rings.

"Thanks for calling Starbucks, this is Rachel."

I can hear a deep throaty laugh.

I start laughing. Neither of us can even speak for ten seconds.

"What's up?" I ask.

"The milkman is here," she laughs. I keep laughing too, because the best thing about Elaine is she legitimately thinks every thing she says is really funny. "And it's not his baby!"

I can't stop laughing, even though a customer is standing there, waiting for me to get off the phone. 

I can't think why she would call to tell me that. There is literally no reason, except that she thought it was a hilarious joke.

Everything is funny when you get four hours of sleep. I missed this in ways I couldn't remember.

I feel like I'm teenaging again.

"So my brother says to the guy, 'Oh look, your iPhone screen is cracked.' And the guy stands up and says, 'No I don't do crack anymore, I just like the way it smells.'"

-Elaine

I bump elbows with her in the studio.
"Can I read your paper?" She asks me.
I blush.
"No, I'd be really---I'd be too embarrassed."
She stares at me, from the other side of her glasses. Me, the girl with tissues in her pocket. Me the girl with the headache.
I try to explain. "It's hard, because I'm white. I don't know the experiences. I'm trying to learn..." and she smiles, slightly. I think she is a friend. I want her as a friend.
"I have a lot of white guilt," I whisper. Too inaudible to hear, in the small studio.

Tony turns on the lights.
She doesn't ask me more questions.

What does it mean, to be born in this privilege, and how the heck are you supposed to sleep every night, when you know what is really going on? You can write papers. You can speak up in class. You can stand up to your white friends, but it
 doesn't
do
anything.

It doesn't change the nightmares of someone in a different country, sleeping on the ground, who wakes up still hoping.

"He was a gossiper. To the maximum."
-Stesha, on Abe Lincoln

"Well I invited a lot of women to go to the waterpark. But most of them were pregnant."
-KG back at Labor day weekend. And now there are even more pregnant women.

Today this girl asked me for a donut, and I gave her a donut, so then she asked for cream cheese and I gave it to her, and she came back ten minutes later and said,
"This is not the kind of donut I wanted," and I looked at her, really confused for a minute, and I was going to try to figure out how to help her, but then she closed her eyes and started mumbling, "Donut, donut....beegel. I want bagel."
"Oh," the lightbulb went off. "That's why you wanted cream cheese."
"Yes."
"Where are you from?" I asked, because her accent sounded close to Russian.
"Ukraine. Where are you from?" And I laughed, because I usually never ask people that question out of politeness, and it was like she was calling me on it. But I was thinking of Tanya and wanted to know.

 But she looked so hopeful, and so I just said, "United States, Iowa." And I laughed again, but I wanted to tell her that one of my best friends was from Ukraine, and that made her happy, and she asked what my friend's name was, which I also thought was funny, but relevant. Tanya says "all Russians in Utah know all the other Russians in one way or another." But this girl didn't know Tanya, so she must be new.

And this is the part where I cram more work into the weekend than I do during the week. A cruelty. And I am losing so many hours to Nyquil.

lessons that I just can't seem to learn:
-to keep a lint roller in my car. 
-to stop double-booking myself.
-to not read on the bus.

weekly thing that I'm enjoying:
"Treat Yo Self Thursdays"  I usually splurge on a donut and coffee for my first class, and sushi for lunch. The rest of the week I eat weird inexpensive snacks and meals that you don't want to know about unless you are a Russian.

looking forward to:
getting done with one last paper before Thanksgiving, and then comes finals and Christmas and New Year's Eve! And all of the gingerbread cookies in between all of that. And some real snow. I LOVE WINTER.

Also, I am getting sick. I know it. So I'm taking one last dog for a walk, renting a Redbox, and falling asleep to it.

 

Even after deleting 100's of angsty teenage posts, and dooming many moodier ones to the "saved drafts" folder, I hit 888 posts yesterday, on 11/1/11. :)

 I slept 11 hours last night to ward off a flu that might still be imminent (all my coworkers have been getting sick) and this morning watched TV and went to the gym, and now I'm making some of my reserve stash of Iowa coffee to sit and eat Reese's PB cups with.   The smell of Friedrich's coffee brings me straight back to Des Moines, and I can close my eyes and believe I'm in Judy's living room and we're watching E! News or Gilmore Girls, or some other worthless TV show. Sounds ridiculous, but it hurts so much to live in Utah, sometimes.

ALTHOUGH. God did make a pretty awesome, angry sunset last night. And I thought, only here can you get this. It wasn't colorful or anything, but the way the dark clouds and mist and snow had sprinkled the valley and mountains all day and cleaned the air....it was breathtaking.

I finally gave DCFC's new album another listen and was wondering how Ben and Zooey were still doing. I thought, how could that marriage work when they are both touring all the time, and she's making a TV show now, and he's so cerebral, and she seems material.
Well I guess they just broke up, so that's weird that I was thinking about it.

Now, if only Jenny would break up with Johnny so that the right musical pair could finally happen. Ben and Jenny would be perfect together. Just sayin'.

12 hour high.
Sorry to my professors....I've been hallucinating all day.