I told my coworkers all day about how excited I was to have a place to watch movies all by myself, and how excited I was to spend Friday night alone. They were so happy for me.

After work, I went grocery shopping. This is the list of things I bought:
-sweet potatoes
-garlic
-hamburger
-ice cream
-corn dogs
-miniature Kit Kats
-Sailor Jerry
-Bottle of cheap red wine

I forgot Asiago cheese.

So you can see it was going to be a wonderful night, and I had enough food to feed a whole party, even though I was just going to be me.

And then I get a text.
"I'm not going to that party, do you want to go to Ikea and get Swedish meatballs?"

We ate our own meals, (I made salsa when I got "home") and we didn't fight, the whole night. I am hopeful, that I am getting better at my relationships, and the right amount of distance and closeness, because everything felt so amazing by the end of the week. Looking out the windows of Ikea, and looking at my friend, everything had such clarity. The colors seemed richer. My student loans more settled. Employers everywhere were waiting for me to quit my job and work for them.

I feel like I can be the kind of girl who RSVPs to things, and who can make herself eat only one Toaster Strudel in the morning.  The kind of girl who turns in her homework before it is due, and works out....two times a week.

And the future has a lot to look forward to right now. I would say, even, a 10 out of 10. :)

I just wrote a really long post about how I almost had to pee behind a building in the scarier part of SLC last night. But I deleted it because I figured it would be kind of boring.

I forgot how you can't really catch your breath when you are working and going to school, and doing foolish things like thinking you are good at using public transit as your lifestyle.
I didn't pee behind a building, or even in a car.

You never think you are going to live on six hours a night. But you do. And you don't even need coffee, is the truth.

One funny thing is that a woman came in to my bank this morning and was there before I got there, and then still had to sit in the car until the branch was open.
When I finally opened the door to let her in, she said, "I've been waiting in the car for an hour." She slid across the counter a single dollar bill. "This is for deposit," she said.
"Why did you come here so early?" I laughed at her, not even one bit sympathetic.
"It's the only time I can."
"Well why didn't you leave your deposit in the night drop or use the ATM?" I asked her, providing a simple, time-effective solution. She just stared at me, and when she realized how foolish she had been, she just got angry.
People are funny. You can rely on that. 
   But don't rely on mortgage rates staying so low after next year. I am pretty disappointed. I wanted to buy a little purple house and have a compost pile in the back yard.

"I think the main reason that being a Mormon didn't workout for me was that I couldn't take wearing long shorts."
-Stesha, and I have to agree, in this horrible weather

Grateful that:

-Summer is almost over
-School is in session
-Plans are being made for exciting trips next year
-I am so well taken care of by a kind God
-Life comes a day at a time

I am really not very stressed out about anything anymore. How did this happen?

No Makeup Monday

Both Martha and I showed up with no makeup on, which is extremely unusual for work, and I could tell it made G just want to duct tape us to our chairs until she could fix the PROBLEM.

I also wore white socks (Que Unprofessional!) just to show how much I wanted to come to work today after such a lovely weekend with friends and family and burritos. Also, I didn't have any clean black ones. That's why. And even though I ironed a week's worth of nice shirts last night, I wore a an old Starbucks collared shirt I got at Wal-Mart three years ago. I know you are impressed by how I let loose.


I felt like it extended my weekend by a few minutes though.

And you know what? I got to the end of a long starving day, and I realized, "Oh my gosh. I don't have to come back here tomorrow." Because tomorrow is my favorite day of the year, besides Thanksgiving and October 27th, and January 1st.

Tomorrow is the first day of school.

Today this guy walked up to Martha's counter, and I couldn't tell where I knew him from, but his face was so familiar.


Maybe because he looked like Spock from Star Trek.

So I thought here is a famous retired Hollywood actor right in front of us, and I smiled, and he instantly moved to my counter.

"Hi, I didn't know you worked here!" He said.
"Where do I know you from?" I asked.
"From bla-bla ward!" He said.
"Nope. I don't go to that ward." Ha ha ha.
"Oh, well you certainly look like Angela, what is your name? Oh Rachel. Wow that is weird, you look like Angela."
"Nope, I guess we look familiar to each other for no reason," I said.
"Yes, well, Angela's kid is always running around during sacrament and her husband is running after her, and Angela just sits there and laughs!" He told me.
Well sir, I am not Angela, so it is just weird that you are telling me this.

For all I know, since Angela looks just like me, she stole my husband and my kid, and converted them to the LDS faith. I'm not sure how I feel about this woman.
I finished the transaction and tried to figure out how I could work into the conversation that I wanted this guy to either invest/apply for a credit card/refinance his house, and just sighed as he walked out.

Martha just laughed, and she stared off into the distance. "That was weird," she said.

Top ten reasons to keep letting the bank make a sales-whore out of me:
-free catered lunches every once in a while
-I am not getting up at 3:45 am to hand coffee out the window to mean people
-paid holidays
-providing for my wife and kids. Oh whoops, that's not me
-my teller coworkers

and that's not ten reasons. That's just it.
Thank you God that I survived all the way to Friday by Your grace alone. Now for some unashamed laying around and reading for two days.

Alaska.

I finished the Out of the Wild: Alaskan Experiment tonight. I cried at the end. I don't know what it is about me that I can't cry at the appropriate times, like when Judy was trying to say goodbye in so many ways. I haven't cried during worship music. 
But I cried at the end of a TV show when 4 people who subjected themselves to horrible conditions found train tracks in the wilderness, and a train picked them up and took them back to their families.

I want to be on Out of the Wild season 3. They've got to be casting soon, right?

I had my usual guilty snack (every third day) of rice. 
"She's eating your food," my dad said to C. (She eats rice and chicken because she is old and throws up anything else)
"I know, I'm so mean! Rice, yum," I said, because I am not supposed to be eating grains. I walked in the other room.
"Noah, will you please move to Alaska with me for a year?" I say this because Philip is pretty worthless to me by now. He has his own agenda, which is not as cool as mine, and he's too involved with his own plans to do anything really cool with me.
"Why the heck would I want to move to Alaska?" He replies, pulling his earphones off his head for a moment, pausing his Youtube video.
"Because, it is a real adventure," I tell him. Maybe at 13, he doesn't have the same call of the wild as you get when you get older and realize civilization sucks. He has a Call of Duty. I think, maybe if I told him he could bring the PS3, he would be more likely to say yes. Still, I feel like I need one of my brothers to go there with me. So it's not going to happen for now.


I feel like several Henry David Thoreau quotes would be appropriate here.


"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."


"All good things are wild and free."

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

I could keep going, but I don't even like Thoreau that much.
I just need an excuse.

"Dang it, that was such a good opportunity and I missed it!"

"What, you mean how you forgot to ask that cute guy out on a date?"

"No. I mean, I can't believe I didn't mention our mortgage rates to him."

-Me and Martha. On a daily basis. Life as a single female bank teller.

"I'm always amazed by how quickly a pre-dinner snack can turn into eating an entire jar of pickles."
- a Keaton status update that I had to record so I can look back and laugh again later

might as well do a "Judy-ism" (as Jeremy R. calls them) as well

"I always tell God--and I know He doesn't like it--that if You do this, then it means this..."
-Judy on signs from God. Specifically about who I'm going to marry if her epidural works out.

"I have a uniquely German capacity to vacillate between sentimentality and coldness."
-Tina Fey, describing a trait I see very much in my German family. :)

 

I finally got an invite to Pinterest today, and so of course that is all I've been doing for the past two hours. But (here comes the justification) I think this is at least better than just watching Netflix and eating M&M's all night. (Oh yeah, like last night.)  I am a bit disappointed in myself for the way I spend a lot of my free time. When I was out east, I read so much, and I was writing more.

So. I started a big writing project here, (as requested by the lovely Kelsea) and now I have all sorts of other inspiration for artsy stuff from endlessly surfing stranger's ideas on the internet.

This weekend, I did get in two great workouts, and my room looks fantastic. It is starting to look like the kind of place I would want to live in if I moved out. I realize how that sounds.
Maybe I will never move out then...
Okay, you talked me into it. I will always live here.

I'm not saying that having a Netflix night is bad, but I need to learn moderation. In everything. We have so few hours in between work and work...

I saw this sign the day we were walking around Chicago. It was on the left side of a door, and on the other side was a sign just like it that said:

you are strong.

I didn't get a picture, and I have been looking for one (why wouldn't there be millions of copies on the whole wide internet) but anyway.

I feel like I'm starting to get my personality back. Feeling like I don't want to just sleep all the time. Feel like I like to live here, again.

17 days until September finally starts.

Only one more week of hard work before school starts, and then things get really truly wonderful.

"honestly, I'm down like the economy"

Every morning I wake up at four a.m.

It used to be in fear, and I faced my demons and let them keep me awake for three months.

Now, I am in Utah, and I still wake up at four, though not with nightmares. I think they are visiting someone else now, maybe a coworker, or someone I've handed a latte to, years ago. But I still wake, and every time, as I move out of paralysis and get up to get a glass of water and use the restroom, I realize that I just woke up from Iowa. In my dreams.


To make a long story short:

a) I am having a hard time adjusting to my old real life.
b) I am having a hard time feeling anything at all.

I listen to people talk about their passions, and I wish for their passion, but I think things will be a LOT easier for me when school starts back up. Because, school is my passion, and I think....actually....writing is. Working everyday at a job I feel mediocre about is: Just Getting By, no matter what shoes I'm wearing or how strangers respond to me on the phone.

I am guessing that God has a lot of stuff to throw at me this year, and I am excited about it, and willing to change and grow.

I want to love deeper. I want to participate in real life.

Cheers to speaking in an American accent, relying on the internet for way more than I should, and having a new start everyday.

one nice thing about the past is that we don't have to relive it.

I know I am guilty of spending a lot of time in nostalgia, but as I was cleaning my Hoarders room this weekend, I opened up an old journal that I didn't even remember writing in.

I read some of my horrifying history from a very crazy year of my life, and thanked God that it is so far away now, and that I learned so much from it, and that I never have to do that messed up crap over again. Even though I thought it was awesome at the time.

I just gotta figure out what the heck I am doing now.
There are some things I know.

Only Jesus is cool. 
I love spicy food. 
No one person is going to make you happy, because other people are just as broken as you. Drink more water, and less of everything else. 
There is a time for video games, and there is a time for socializing. 
Don't eat the sushi if a rich guy is paying for it, and you don't see a girlfriend for him anywhere at the table. 
If you can possibly bring a pair of tennis shoes, do.
and, if you stay home and do homework instead of going out with your friends, you will save STRESS and MONEY.

These are my sureties. And I know that new ones will develop, over the next 100 years.

"Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely
I've been hallucinating you babe, at the backs of other women. 
And I tap on their shoulder, and they turn around smiling, but there's no recognition in their eyes."
-Regina Spektor


Long week. I'm not so scared to keep doing it, it just feels like it doesn't mean much yet.
Except the beautiful people I know.
I know and love.
But I forget how to talk to, and break my arms around the ones I love. I lose my personality in between the phone calls I am paid for, and standing around in pressed black pants.
I love, and I lack. And I am sorry about the lack. But we press onward and we find old clothes in our closets that fit our new selves.

"Oh summer in the city, means cleavage cleavage cleavage.
And don't get me wrong dear, in general I'm doing quite fine.
It's just when it's summer in the city, and you're so long gone
from this city, I start to miss you baby, sometimes."

Well, I don't know what to say about a lot of stuff.

The conclusion is that I am happy to be back to my friends, and so grateful for their kindnesses to me. Love, love, love, love, love.

And then the results of being gone for so long:

...my room looks like a science experiment or a Hoarding: Buried Alive episode

...being back at work is like, are you serious? I have to do this every day? And then when you get to the end of the day, you get five blissful hours before bed, and then you think again, What? I have to go back to work AGAIN tomorrow?

...oh yeah, about all that ice cream I was eating...shoot.

...but! I forgot how amazing alone time is. I haven't had any, and it is so good to just be by myself for three hours in swimming pools and cardio cinemas

Conclusion II

Everything is going to be pretty awesome. How could it not be, with September right around the corner?

"Noah, not every disease is an airborne disease."

"If I cough in your mouth, you will get a disease."

-Emma, then Noah

"I left home, a long long time ago, in a tin can for the road, with a suitcase and some songs..."

On our way back to Iowa, we passed these outlets that we stopped at last year. We stopped there because one of Noah's shoes caught on fire at the farm and he did not have one single alternate pair.

So we got some extra shoes, but I remember last year when I was standing in that parking lot I was having a text-message conversation with an old friend (who had gotten mixed up in a past one of my crazy Liz Lemon schemes! No, I am the protagonist!) and how he asked me if I was happy, and at the end of the day I thought, I don't really know. And of all the people, he told me I should move to Iowa.

And then God provided me with a test-run summer to live out here, and I ended up loving it even more than I possibly thought I could.

So now comes....I guess a year of prayer. Although, when I was walking around Chicago for six hours, I realized all the things I love about SLC, and how even though it is a whole different country from the United States, Utah still seems to have more culture than Iowa, even if it is much less educated.

I miss the church body in SLC, but the good thing is that the church body is everywhere.

Still. I am very, very excited and terrified to go back and to try to get up each day and pretend I know what I'm doing, or what I used to do. I remember pho. I remember Este. I remember my close friends and laughing over wine and board games, watching zombie shows, waking up in my bank clothes at their houses, and riding in cars through blizzards and listening to Weezer with them.

I am so full of happy.

"How these days grow long, and I'm on my way back home, it's been hard to be away. How I miss you and I just want to kiss you, and I'm going to love you til my dying day." -Brandi Carlile

At the moment I am deep in the heart of the country.

It is very hard to live without internet, but on the otherhand I've never gotten to eat so much icecream in my entire life.

Weekend Update

Yesterday we went to a really cute movie theatre at the college that Judy and Phil went to. It was adorable, and I wish I could have taken pictures, but it would have been way awkward and "touristy" so I didn't. There was only one theatre, and it was gigantic. The lobby was tiny, with only two people working it, running back and forth to rip tickets and make popcorn. The bathrooms were like little closets with sinks and toilets inside them.

We saw Midnight in Paris and I loved every minute of it. I don't want to ruin anything, so I'm not going to say one word. Owen Wilson just never lets me down. If I am ever having a horrible day, or anxiety, or just want to feel better about anything, I just have an Owen-fest.

Today, we had a picnic with my "Uncle" Roger. He's Judy's brother, so he's a great uncle, but we've always just called him Uncle Roger because the whole family does. He is a very eccentric old man, and unless you've met him, you could never understand how funny he is. He is serious and collegiate, but really goofy. We ate on their back porch, and one of his sons (Paul) brought his wife and two daughters that are my age.
One thing I like about this side of the family, is that there is incredible push/support to get a good education, but no stress to actually get a good job. Paul is a doctor, but is just as goofy as Uncle Roger, and his wife has a Ph.D in some kind of ministry or seminary or counseling. One daughter has a degree that I can't remember, but is now living in Mexico and riding her bike a lot, and the other daughter is getting a degree in History. The three of us will probably not be getting degree-specific jobs, I am guessing.

I always tell you how much I am cooking, but here is a picture. My blog doesn't have much color most of the time.

We made beignets for breakfast, and we drink weak flavored coffee (I know what you are thinking, "You worked at Starbucks!") and there are some delicious strawberries.  It was great, but the house smelled like beignets all day, and in a bad way.

The neighbor kid comes and knocks on the door about 4 times a day. Kids are already bored by summer. "If you need to talk to me," he says, "My mom's cell phone number is......" Which is hilarious.

We have kind of been watching some heavy movies. We watched The Godfather a couple days ago, which made me remember I wanted to marry an Italian. But then yesterday we watched The Green Mile, which I had also never seen. It was one of those moments where I just cried and worshipped God, and made me so thankful for mercy.

I also had a moment when Judy asked me, "Do you think this would look good in your front yard?" And I couldn't remember what my front yard in Utah looked like. I pictured the yard here, and it took me a few tries to pull up my memory of our home in Salt Lake.

How do I reconcile? I know there will be good parts about going back. Seeing loved ones. But my heart will ache for my home here.

When I was little, we sometimes kept Cool Whip in the fridge, and I'd walk by and if no one was looking, I'd stick my finger in and eat a big glob of it.

One day my dad caught me and that was that. I couldn't eat the Cool Whip anymore.

And now I'm an adult and I can eat a whole tub of Cool Whip if I want.

Day 40

I am still glad every morning that I wake up in Iowa.

Uncle Bill came out to teach out here over the past few days, and had lunch with us (Maid Rites - they are like a sloppy joe, sort of. Mmmm) and then we went to see him speak at the church. It was really awesome to worship with the college kids out here. I looked around and told Judy, "This would never happen in Utah." About how there were so many kids going to College and Church. As in, our church. Four girls introduced themselves to us, and they were very nice. Not one single girl sat next to a single guy in the whole room of like, 100 people. It reminds me of how Colorado probably still is too. And I think it is awesome that they are killing it at the old fashioned way that our movement is kind of supposed to do dating and socializing, but I heaved a sigh of relief that we don't follow that very closely in Utah, and that we can have a room full of guys and girls who are actually friends and actually talk to each other and can ride in cars together and still stay pure somehow. :)

I am enjoying not having headaches. I don't know if I can attribute it to being here and not there, but usually May through August I have a headache every single morning I wake up. I've had maybe 5 headaches total since I've left Utah. Could be the sleep, the cleaner air, or just not having stress. If you have migraines, you know that it is such a different world to live without the pain.

God is good. I don't deserve His goodness, but I am so thankful that He chose me.

"Oh. That girl combed her hair with an egg-beater. We should pull up next to her and yell, "You look like a pineapple!" Better not. She might have a gun and shoot us."
- Judy, on the girl in the car in front of us, who had a messy bun on top of her head

"Well. We are really good cooks. And this dinner is going to be great because we are sick of eating out. Or maybe we're not."
- always rethinking her current statements. I got her to try Greek food for the first time in her life. We went to the Greek fair and had Gyros, and she LOVED it. She asked the woman at the booth to tell us how to pronounce it, and now when she wants to make me laugh, she will just be talking with her normal accent, and then twist up her mouth and say, "Yee-hi-roes" in her imitation Greek accent.

We just have a lot of fun. We've been laughing a lot today.

No place like home.

I'm getting more confused which direction is supposed to be home.  I'm happier here than I've been since...probably 2008. (Part of it could be that I'm not working, not stressed about papers, I'm on top of a mountain with my relationship with God, and having healthy amounts of sleep) But part of it is spending all this time with someone who is so easy to talk to, and wants to be with me, and spills out love when touched.

I love my friends and family in Utah so much.
But at the moment, it's hard to picture not coming back here for good.

"She used to have the cutest short hair."
-Judy, absentmindedly, on a news reporter. She always laments when women sell out and let their hair grow

I was telling her this animated story about turning lanes today while we were driving on our way to a doctor appointment and waving my arms around and laughing about it, and I looked over and she was just smiling at me. "I'm glad you're here." She said, in reply to my story. And it's moments like that. I want to freeze time. Sleeping in, and then when we finally wake up, I just go in her room and lay on her quilt and we just talk with no age-gap between us.

I've been away from Utah long enough to start to believe in real love again. To melt my heart when I see my grandparents talk about their deceased spouses. To realize that yes, you can make a love last 50 years. I don't pretend to know how to hope for that myself (perhaps the Lord will come back before that affection could stir up within me. It would take a lightning bolt to feel butterflies again) but I have to recognize that it happens for other people. And that is a beautiful thing.

If only I could steal one of those stories and sell it as a novel. I might need another summer for that.

I've been at the farm for 5 days, without the internet.


I forgot what I was going to say about Greyhound buses (they are not as romantic as DCFC makes them out to be), farm chores, and the heavy but serene beauty of being out in the real country.

I mowed the lawn on a rider-mower which I can't remember if I have ever done. And I caught a possum (sp?) and two raccoons. Vermin! ha.

I talked to Shannon (ON THE PHONE!) for half an hour yesterday. She is the first voice I have heard (other than my family) from home, in 32 days. I fell in love with her all over again. 


I am packing up my little blue bag again, and moving onward.

Each day that goes by, I miss home so much, but I also feel like this is home.
These are not so much Judy's dishes, but now they are our dishes. Our routines intertwine.

This may sound ridiculous, but feels like reality.

I have a plane ticket back to Salt Lake tomorrow that I'm not going to use. If I had known, packing my bag to come here, that I was going to be out here for 3 months, I would have packed a lot more stuff.

I miss my buddies. I miss Este Pizza. I miss my family. I even miss the Aussies.

But I'm really having a good time with Judy. And everyday I look at my surroundings and think that we are masochists to live in a desert when Iowa is so lush, and the air smells beautiful.

I did some gardening yesterday with Judy. I am not a gardener. She kept saying all these latin names, and I was like, I don't know what that is, and she said, "the pink flowers over there". I'm only good for pulling weeds.

And I was trying to stay really white due to skin cancer, but I have a really horrible farmer's tan.

Living away from Salt Lake and all my usual sights and tastes(I haven't had anything spicy in 20 days) starts to boil me down and I think of myself as this blank state.

This is what a lot of people wish for. A chance to start over and run away from your problems. And in this case, it really worked, but that doesn't mean I don't miss the people who usually help me solve the problems.

I got a lot of texts from people I love today, which sounds really stupid, but means a lot when I haven't seen any Salt Lakers in 3 weeks. And this is just the first "trimester" of my trip. Ha. But I take each day at a time and know I won't be given a gift so huge as this trip, again, for a really long time. Or maybe I will, this year could be God's way of saying, "Rachel, good job hanging in there for all of 2009 and the hard parts of 2010." I can't really tell if that is a sacrilegious thing to say. Right now I have some Benedryl  starting to kick in.

So here are some of my action steps in hitting the reset button while I am out here in the fields of waving grain.
- I've been catching up on my daily Bible readings. (I am only one month behind now. Woohoo!)
- I am trying to clean up my speech, in all ways.
- trying to be quick to serve.
- learning the stories, the heritage. Geesh. I am supposed to be writing these stories down.

Judy told me today that she cried really hard when we moved to Colorado to start a church. She was devastated. And I never really thought about that. We have always just kept moving farther and farther from home base, and it never seemed to phase my parents, but it was really hard on the grandparents.

I told Judy today that I feel like I am supposed to be writing my proverbial novel. You always see the writers go off into the country to write, but here I am watching Reality Television and painting my fingernails.

I will try harder. I will.

Maybe it was a little premature to say that I don't want to go back to Utah. I do miss people there. Especially my family.
I just don't miss the dog hair, the pollution, and doing the same old.

I will want to go back, just not right now.

We are talking about me staying here until the end of June, when I would then go to the farm with my family for most of July. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Blair Waldorf may summer in Paris, but this is the first time I've gotten to "summer" anywhere, and of course I would choose the Midwest. :)

I might not do my Into the Wild adventure this summer, but this is an adventure in itself.

I mean, I have been wearing the same 6 shirts over and over and over...

[x] Made my first quiche

I'm just learning all sorts of recipes.

I don't really want to go back to Utah, and this is a problem.

Receiving Gifts.

I feel downright spoiled, these days.

And there is something very hard for me, about receiving gifts. I'm the oldest child in my family, and we grew up in a very frugal household. I never wanted to owe my parents everything, so I've always had jobs to pay for the things that I wanted to enjoy, but wouldn't let my parents pay for.

I had my truck paid off by my first semester of college. I always bought my own clothes. I have never asked my parents for money.

Growing up this way has made it very hard for me to accept gifts. To receive a gift I haven't earned gives me that weird feeling in my gut. I have to live up to this, I think.

Since I got here, I have been lavishly showered in love and presents, and adoration by my grandmother, my grandfather, and even my great uncle. I think, that even though it is hard to receive this attention, it is a picture, also, of what Christ has done for me. Something that I can never repay. But it gives me drive in my gut to live up to something. Our works on earth will never bring us any closer to the arms of Jesus, but our servitude is a reflection of our gratitude.

I am more humbled and convicted each day of what a crumby human I am, and the Christ-follower I want to become. I want to leave a legacy.

I want to break the habit of staying up til 1am and getting up at 9am, but tonight is not the night, I guess.

I got to see my grandfather (Marvin) today and yesterday, because he is in town visiting his Iowa friends. This is the most cheerful I've seen him since two years ago. He didn't even start crying at lunch today when Gin told a story about my grandma. I did instead.

Life here is...good. The air smells like honey, and it's thick and muggy. I like the humidity. The streets are small, like the older parts of the Salt Lake valley, but very much unrepaired compared to Utah streets.
I am getting to know my way around Des Moines, even by myself. I know the street names and where they intersect, even though they don't have NorthSouthEastWest attached to them. I feel like a native more each day. I know I could stay, if God asked me to do that. I'd miss every one in Salt Lake really dreadfully, but I could do it.

I had a New Belgium 1554 tonight. I know you're jealous. If you live in Utah. But no matter if I just have one beer, or twenty, I always get a headache.

And also, I was using the electric blanket on my bed two days ago, and then the next day it was suddenly summer. And you might know I hate summer, but I was standing out on the lawn, accidentally enjoying the sprinklers, and I do have to admit that I have it in my heart to enjoy summer nights. But that's it. I am already dreaming of September Fashion, and Thanksgiving, and snowfall, and pumpkins. Call me a heretic.

Happy Mother's Day!

Today we made really delicious orange scones with really decadent frosting. Real scones, not Utah scones.

All of my grandmother's dishes are that elegant.

Mother's day is stressful for me (like, what holidays aren't?) because I never know how to say thank you enough for what a mother does. But I think saying thank you at all is a big deal. So, thanks to all moms!!

We watched all of Anne of Green Gables today, which is really long. Any L. M. Montgomery brings back age eleven through thirteen. That, and watching Pride and Prejudice last night has put me in kind of a sappy-romantic mood. That, and not seeing any men my age since my plane ride last week.

So here is a toast to mothers, and here is a toast to classic romance.
And maybe a toast to whatever Modern Romance is, and how that brings about more mothers.

"This might be long and boring. We don't know yet."
-Judy on film Hereafter

You might have heard Celisse and I pretending to be Judy while we watch movies. But I always have to laugh inside when I am actually watching a movie with the real Judy.

She does a thing of explaining to you what we usually already know, and she says this collectively, like we are just finding it out together. It's fun. Try it.

"Oh the girl is just now realizing she's in love with the guy."

Also, she falls asleep during movies a lot, like my dad, but she wakes up and then asks a whole bunch of questions, and then falls back asleep. Kind of like watching a movie with Noah, only he doesn't fall asleep. He just asks a lot of questions.

On a side note, I think Noah is going to turn out, somehow, to be the most wildly successful of all of us Tenenbaums.
He'll be the one ignoring our questions and phonecalls. And rightly so.

I looked down tonight at my hands, washing the coffeepot, and thought about each day that I do this. I like playing house.

And Judy was right. Hereafter was way long and boring. Too many plotlines, but not enough Magnolia-ness.

[x] make my first meatloaf

Yeah. That was a real thing on my fake bucket-list.

Sometimes Megan talks about the meals she is preparing, and she gets really wound up, and stresses out in a cute way about it. I thought making meatloaf was going to be really hard, because of all the questions I heard her asking people. But I love meatloaf (the food.) so much that I decided to do it anyway, and Judy gave me a recipe.

Megan and I can make meatloaf, and you can too.

I've been frying up potatoes, breaded fish, bacon...(yep, we've been eating pretty heavy meals) and we've been eating ice cream drumsticks every night. They are going to make me buy another seat when I fly back to Utah.

Just kidding.

I've been trying to run outside (hate it), and go up and down the stairs, and I'm trying to do push-ups and sit-ups when Judy is on the phone. I don't want her to know that I'm running up and down the stairs, because that is just embarrassing that I would think that is going to cancel out ice cream or melted Pepperjack turkey sandwiches. (Are you hungry yet?) I'm approximately skinnier than when I left, but I did buy a pair of sweat pants that I wear all day, so I really can't tell.

Iowa is treating me well. I haven't had heartburn, a headache, or a stomach ache since I've been here. Although my brain might be melting from watching too much TV, this is a short, blissful season of my life that I'm going to enjoy while it lasts.

sarahogren on Etsy

I was hiding underneath the sea. I was looking out for me. Just me, the fish and the sea.
Patrick Watson

I lay awake for a while at night, without my white noise, wondering about how I got to be the way I am, and what parts are the influence of my family. Jeremy once said, as he was walking out the door,
"Rachel, you have your mother's common sense, and your dad's cynicism. You've got common cynicism."

My dad's side of the family is extremely outgoing, laughs a lot, loves deeply, and worries about stuff until they get it over with.
I think that when I am outgoing, I am like them. Especially worrying about stuff.

My mother's side of the family is more introverted, and mostly keep things bottled inside, but also laughs a lot, they know how to have fun together.

I hope I am a mix of them. I know that my honesty of who I am deep down only comes out over wine with the Moores, or during Jazz games with Celisse and Bryan in their basement. Or eating out with Kelsea and Caleb. (Oh, I just figured it out, I'm a third wheel.) But otherwise I know that I can push things away to simmer for years, and I need to let go.

Being with Judy is really great so far. My heart is learning humility, I think. I look around at the pictures in her house, and think about how in-love my grandparents were until the day Phil went to Heaven. I feel my walls melting about the marriage thing. I realize marriage will turn out really good for some people. I won't close my heart off for good, even if my eyes are closed right now.

"Rachel, we're not teenagers anymore. We don't fall in love with every guy we see," Martha told me during my last week of work. And she's right. There's probably some hoser out there for me somewhere. And hopefully he's almost done becoming a Dermatologist.

Day One.

I woke up in Iowa. On the second floor of the Happily Ever After house. When you walk in this house, it smells better than any other place. I woke up late.
It is amazing to just sit and talk with Judy, and not worry about how I have to leave in 5 days. Or 6 days. Or even 20 days. To not think about vault combos, or account maintenance, or Spanish. I went grocery shopping for us, and the cashier and bagger both gave me a smiling welcome to Iowa.

There is no one as free as I am, right now.
I just wish she wasn't in so much pain. Twenty four hours a day. But she is encouraged and hopeful, which makes me encouraged and hopeful.

We made a short trip to the hospital, and on the way back I noticed a marquee under a sign for either a dry cleaner, or a car wash or something, and it said, Don't abandon your friend. Just like that. No explanation. And I thought, maybe their heart is broken. Or maybe it's just an ad that I don't understand.

MisNopalesArt on etsy

It is a strange thing that all that is holding our blood and guts and tissue inside is SKIN. Skin is amazing. It heels back over, you can graft it. It grows and changes with you. It amazes me that the worst that happens is that it will get wrinkly as we get older, and if we live a really long time, it gets papery and thin. We are very blessed at how many do-overs God lets us have with this single body we've been given.

72 hours from now, I'll be on a plane.

I can feel God protecting me and holding my hand through all of this. I'm watching him tie it up with a bow and give it to me like a present.
-I think I'm going to still have my job when I come back.
-Spanish Oral evaluations went pretty well, and I'm done with Spanish for the rest of my college career
-I'm 34% done with my Horror paper (so that must mean I have 10 more hours)

"Like a soldier, one foot in front of the other."
Regina Spektor

We keep going.

Hell week

I can't believe I just went through this 4 months ago. It seems like yesterday.

I can't remember names. I can pull up faces, but not names. I've been drinking more cups of coffee than I thought I was capable of.
I'm still only two pages into my Horror paper. I think after Spanish Oral Evaluations in the morning, I'll be able to think clearer.

The time is flashing before my eyes.

Alright, what is next?

My workplace is very dramatic right now, but I am trying to ignore it all, and just enjoy my last week. Yesterday, I walked in, and there were balloons at my station, and the board that we use to post mortgage rates said. "Rachel's last week!" And something else nice about saying goodbye. I think we might have a little party, and I just can't believe how nice they are being, because I've only worked there for 8 months. Ashleigh calls it "Graduation goggles", where everything is suddenly rosy, and you think to yourself, "Why am I leaving here, again?"

I had a really nice Spanish dinner with Ashleigh and Dan, and amazing wine. And then we walked to the frozen yogurt place, and my heart was so full and so happy.

But as I lay in bed and couldn't fall asleep, I thought to myself about what the air smells like, standing on the back-porch of my grandmother's house, and I know I'm doing the right thing, even though it's going to be so hard to see her in pain, when she was so lively at Christmas time.

"I'm alright, don't I always seem to be? I've been swinging off the stars, don't I wear them on my sleeves?"
-Brandi Carlile

My dentist told me to start brushing with my left hand. To slow down, and stop taking my anger out on my teeth.
I need a drink before you sit down and tell me this.
Sometimes when I am leaving your house at 11:30 at night, I still see a very old man leaning into his computer, in his office, and I think why is he still there.
I am trying to listen to Mumford and Sons, and all I can think is this guy sounds like a folk-pop version of Eminem. Or something.
Still, my favorite sound of all time is when your car slows down on the interstate, on the off-ramps mostly. It is the sound of going home. Whether to your home in Utah, or your home in Iowa, and your home in Illinois.

I walk down the halls, I try to think of how many ways I can say,
The wind is at my back.
I'm walking on clouds.
There is warm sunshine, and I am wearing sunglasses.
All the wine is all for me.
The icing on the cake.
The world is my oyster.

"I bribed them to sing a song that would drive us insane and make our hearts swell and burst."
-Joe Banks, Joe vs. the Volcano

I watched a couple kids over the weekend as per the Marriage Conference and there being a general lack of single people around, I was asked to by Nancy, regardless of what people may be thinking in their heads... Have I ever even seen Rachel around a small child? But I have been around two small children now.

On Saturday, I woke up on the couch to Isaac yelling my name from his bedroom. I thought it was still around 4a.m., (it was 7:30)
"MISS RACHEL, I WET THE BED!"
"No you didn't, you are wearing a pull-up." I told him.
"Oh. Can I get up now?"
"I guess."

And I realized, when you have kids, not only do you work all week to put their needs first, but you also have to do this all weekend. And when you were twenty two, you could wake up late, eat waffles, go back to bed, and then watch OnDemand all day until you apply your face and go to church.
I heaved a sigh of relief that I am still twenty two, and I vowed to let my poor future children watch as many episodes of Alec-Baldwin-narrated-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine as they want on Saturdays. But also to teach them to read when they are four. Maybe this will even things out.

"You are married, right?" Isaac asked me at lunch time.
"Ha! Noooooo. Definitely not."
"You are married!" He yelled at me, and put on his pouty face, which he does whenever you contradict anything he says.
"Nope. If I was married, I would be at the marriage conference, or at home watching my kids. Why do you think I am married?"
"BECAUSE YOU ARE MARRIED." He yelled back.
"Okay."

Sometimes, after a glass of wine, I think I am married. To Bob. I think Bob and I live in Holladay or Salt Lake, and that he is kind enough to me to never think about getting a dog. I don't think about how we ended up married, but we accidentally did, and I sleep well at night because of the gun sitting on the night-stand. We do not have a car-port, because car-ports are terrifying. Car-ports are always the beginnings of my worst nightmares ending in me chopping at the brachial or carotid arteries of a bad guy with a car key.

I think I dream this dream because of reading my friend Kristie's blog, and she seems to live in a gingerbread house and writes her life in lists of things she's living through with her husband.

Bob, maybe if I had let you ask me to dance instead of running and hiding in the bathroom, we could have had this life together. But you are fine and I am fine too.

I want to do a big backpack trip into the mountains where you take everything in on your backs. I think this will help me reconcile my current Out of the Wild dreams.

I want to become a penny-pincher. I wish I could become like my friends who live by the bare minimum. I want to do this to be saving up for something really grand or exciting.

I want to go on a Central or South American mission trip after college.

I am starting to think through what I'm packing for my Iowa adventure. I put a couple things for sale online to try to make the most money possible to prepare for being jobless.

I did spend a few sunny minutes on my back porch watching the Aussies running around. But for being so Sunday Ambitious, I really didn't get anything done today but watch shows OnDemand and do half of a Jillian workout.

school days

Every one knows I love school.
It took me a few years.
It took me losing a few heart-warming things.
It took me time for literature to sink in.

For a few years, I felt like every other student was smarter than me, and that they all knew something I didn't. Or worse, that they had taken a class that taught them all about Lacan's mirror theory, or about how to ace MLA for writing papers. Or maybe I needed to smoke weed to get the deeper meaning of everything. But it turned out I was just young and was only taking 2 or 3 classes a semester, so I really wasn't reading as much as the other English students who were wearing weird clothes and didn't have real jobs.

Now, I love school. And it's not like I feel part of this elite academia like "Skinny Harvard Girl" (see "Harvard" label) or Pilar*, and it's not always just about the learning and the knowledge. It's just about being there. It's just about taking the bus or the train to this place.

The university...it feels secluded. It feels far away from my house (it is) and it feels like there are no children there. (Sometimes I see a child, and it is like, where the heck did you come from?) It feels like a place I travel to.
The iPod is involved in getting there. Moody music and This American Life.
Snacks are involved. Packing your bag for the long hours.
Reading books you never would have read. Forcing yourself to learn and think in a second language, just because it is required for your Bachelor's in Art.

But besides being a road trip, College is full of surprising people. You put them under a certain amount of pressure, and watch them start to boil. OR, you just take away their parents, and find out that they are actually primates.
You see girls who are wearing sunglasses to class because they are hungover. You see a boy in the Library commons trying to get you to vote for a ficus tree instead of the students who are running for office. You see a kid walk down the hall in a shark costume.

And one day, maybe you are just washing your hands in the girls' bathroom after spending an entire class period searching for the deeper gender politics in the British Horror movie The Descent and standing there, staring at you, is an old man. A very old man. And you are embarrassed to try to think how to tell him he is in the women's restroom. He is giving you an awkward smile because he is trying to think how to tell you that you are in the men's restroom. You know there is another girl in the stall, but you think, This old guy is pretty harmless, so you don't say anything, and as you walk away, you see him looking for urinals and not being able to spot any. And you hope the other girl doesn't see him, and you hope no other girls see him.
And perhaps they don't.
And you reassure yourself that it was definitely an old man, because he had a real beard.

"And all the wine is all for me."
-The National

*Character bio: Pilar
Pilar sits next to me in Spanish, and makes me feel old because she is 18. She has no job, but takes like a buttload of credits and plays Lacrosse. She is the most fluent in our Spanish class, besides our professor. She also takes Greek, because she is Greek. I have a deep and undying need for her to approve of me, because she is a way cooler 18-year-old than I ever was.

photo courtesy of Discovery Channel

Philip got me hooked on this show. It's called Out of the Wild.
I caught up on two more episodes over the weekend, and it's all I see when I close my eyes.

The premise is that they dropped these (nine?) people off in a desolate part of Venezuela and they have to trek 70 miles over mountains, jungles, and Savannah. They got 3 days of survivor training, but for the most part they are just ordinary people from California, Michegan, Illinois, etc. There is no prize at the end if they make it.

I think that's what gets me most, is they are out there in these horrible circumstances, and just because they want to accomplish this goal. They usually trek for a day, set up camp, and then spend a day or two trying to find food. They never find much: they catch a couple of fish, or eat some larvae or termites, and these hard disgusting bark-fruits. They are eating an average of like, 300 calories a day.

And the funny thing is, that watching them keep trekking together, emaciated and dizzy, I want to be there with them, doing it.
Or do something like it.
It makes me want to do some kind of fun summer adventure.
More to come.

i have dreams

In my daydreams, I am sitting next to someone who smells nice. There is Russian music in the background, and when I touch the skin on my face, it is soft like summer and I no longer crave sugar. I crave to run through the fields and have itchy farm-legs. To run until I gasp for breath and Rosy runs next to me, and in the end of the dream, we both jump into the lake, and no seaweed will wrap its arms around me and drag me down into the snapping turtles on the bottom.

The real dreams I have at night are stress dreams. Stress dreams of leaving children very much un-babysat. I leave them before their parents come home, and then always in the dreams (with or without the children) I have to run from Sandy to Murray. Or from Salt Lake to Holladay, and I never know how long this will take me. I run to babysit these kids. Or I run for other reasons.

Every time I see a white Land Rover, I recall the red-faced couple who came to get their extra-dry 1 pump white mocha soy cappuccinos and sandwiches with the sausage taken off. I quickly recall the nightmares that they gave me.

Lord, have mercy on me.

I got 100% on a Spanish quiz, we had an interesting Horror/Gender discussion today, and I was able to name the perfume that one of my clients was wearing while I was at work. So, pretty successful day I would say.

Well somebody has a hot date
and I think it's Noah. I think he smells like Usher. Whatever cologne he is wearing, there is a lot of it, and it is flavoring my Chinese food in the wrong direction.

To live here is confusing. And you may say, "Rachel, remember that time you said that one has to become a mind-reader to survive?" Well I did say something like that. I think it was pertaining to relationships.
But something you aren't prepared mentally for, is to hit your 23rd birthday, and to still be living with your parents, and jobless, and still going to college.
You aren't prepared to stand next to a skinny 20 year old in front of the library, and hear her talk about graduating next year and moving to Boston, and living a really exciting life.
And maybe you look at this skinny girl, and you think about how she loves Arrested Development and Joe Vs. the Volcano as much as you do. And you sigh, because this other girl, she gets up in the morning and wears a skirt and tights, and lives in the dorms, and takes a shuttle to Spanish. She is living out the Harvard dream instead of you. She is more Betty Draper than you, too.

It might be a heartbreaking moment. But you pull yourself onto the bus, and the guy next to you chats you up, and you still got it, a little bit. Dave is looking at you, wanting to know your phone number because you are a good wholesome girl, born in the Midwest and sensible in all the Prairie Home Companion type ways.

I close my eyes, lean my head against the window. There is a place in my mind, where I don't have to share a car. Where I ride my bike or the bus to Everywhere. Where I talk 12 credit semesters, and have 300 Bible verses memorized. Where I have never let a boy hold my hand. Or I have been married to a handsome black man, and we always iron our clothes, and at the end of the day go to Jazz games and drink Bud Light out of clear plastic cups. Depending on how I'm feeling on this particular bus ride.

But ultimately, I am happy here. I love my family. I enjoy the privilege of driving a car when it is inconvenient to take public transit. I am still going to an amazing university, and the "Harvard" girl sitting next to me heard the same Jorge Luis Borges words that I did today. But maybe it affected her differently. Maybe I am the lucky one.

So there are these little pills I been taking
And my doctor, she says that they're safe
But I been sleepwalking down to the lake
And waking up in the water
-Jenny Lewis (with Johnny)

I think, "Adam and Eve, did you have to take these pills to get rid of allergies? To keep your guts from rotting within you? To settle your stomach so that it didn't come back up? Did you take antibiotics after you had strep throat?" And the answer is no. No they didn't.
Our DNA keeps breaking down more every year.

Well. I can't prove that. I don't know anything that has to do with science. But that's what my dad says, and he is the only person I believe about science, and I think it's because he knows about as much as I do.

I might take more pills than the average person my age. I get headaches, I get allergies, I get other painful problems.
With the more preventative pills, I think to myself, "What will happen if I stop taking this?" But it is just a really bad idea.
And it ends up being,
that this is real life.
That sometimes diet and exercise are not a cure-all.

But yes, one day we will be on the other side, and Adam and Eve will be like, "Wow, it really escalated quickly down there." And we will nod.
All the old grandmas and I. The old men will nod with me, and the other 22 year old girls who are taking 7 pills a day. "Yes it did," we will say.

life in Utah

One thing I still haven't figured out, is staying hydrated. I drink more water than anyone else I know, but I am constantly thirsty.

I thought I would see a huge difference after I quit alcohol. But, I haven't. And yes, I usually have one cup of coffee a day. And I take an allergy pill, which sure doesn't help. But it doesn't seem like it should be this hard. I typically drink 3 liters of water a day, and any of my coworkers I've ever had could tell you how often I have to run to the bathroom.

I can only think that it comes down to living in the desert, and how dry the air is here.

So.
It's Friday night, my family is gone who-knows-where. Celisse hasn't answered the phone. I think it's going to be a quiet night to read, watch my dogs pace back and forth, and cook a fish in my toaster oven.

I was thinking I'd be excited that it's April 1st, but it is making everything loom over my head. I have to start thinking about my hard conversation I'm going to have with G. I am going to the dentist next week. And then finals are coming up, and at the same time packing, and having my things in order.

I feel like I am getting on a boat. I will be out at sea for a month. Judy will be there. There will be lots of books to read, and comforting silences.
And yes,
there will be Long John Silvers there.