"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.

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.

When you get back, there will still be soap suds in the sink. The oven will still smell like taquitos. The light bulbs will still be warm.

But I won't be here.

My perfume might still linger in the air. I might even leave a glass of water sitting on a desktop.

Goodbye bowl. Goodbye brush. Goodbye bowl, full of mush.

On Children

I don't really spend that much time with Children who are older than one. As in, Children who can talk.

The other night I went to spend a couple hours with Celisse while she was babysitting Olivia. I'd heard a lot about Olivia. She is a very precocious three year old. It's like she is a very small, normal person, but she is really three. My favorite Olivia-ism is that she always says. "Well you can if you want to, but if you don't want to that's okay too." Also she calls her mom "Mother" which is a very foreign thing.

But the next day, I had a weirder encounter. Kylie told me that a kid might come over and knock on the door, but that I didn't have to answer it. And I didn't think this would actually happen.

Daisy started barking, and was clearly looking at someone who would be at the front door, so I looked out the window, and down on the porch was a young boy who was knocking softly on the door.
Then he was banging on the door. I couldn't ignore him, because there were lights obviously on, and my car was in the driveway.
I cracked open the door.
"Hello?" I said, into the one inch of open space, where he was looking at me, shyly.
"Hi."
"They're not here," I said. Because I didn't know what else to say.
"That's okay, they told me they'd be gone."
And I waited for him to state his name and purpose.
.
..
...
"They told me I could come in and pet the dog."
I thought about saying sorry, and please come back another time, but it struck me how lonely he must be to come over and have his excuse to come in be that he wanted to pet the dog.
"Okay." I said. And I opened the door and let him in, and I just sat on the steps and wondered what to do. I thought to say, Sorry I'm not wearing real pants. Or, Would you like a cookie, or something. But some people wear leggings as pants, and he shouldn't know the difference. Also offering a cookie would extend this awkward visit.
"How old are you," he asks, trying not to look at me, but also trying to see what I looked like.
"Twenty-two." I said.
"Oh you are old. You are thirteen years older than me." He immediately calculated.
"How old are you?" I asked, not immediately calculating.
"Nine."
Somehow I didn't believe him.
"My birthday was September 11, 2001." He said.
"What?"
"September 11, 2001. The day the twin towers fell."
"Oh my gosh."
"Yeah," he said. Still trying not to look at me. "They told me you'd be a kid."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. I guess they were wrong." He said. I didn't try to explain to him that kids can't drive to other people's houses and stay the night by themselves. He thought I'd be a kid who would want to play guns or Xbox or something.
I silently sat there, watching him pet the dog, who was enjoying the attention.
"Okay, I guess I should go now." He said, and walked out the door.
"It was nice to meet you," I said, and locked the door behind him, and then ran up to the window to watch where he would go.

He looked around the neighborhood for a heavy moment. Just spacing out. And then he picked up some snow and turned it into a snowball. I felt weird to keep watching him, and went to finish lunch.

I thought about how many hundreds or thousands of people out there are really lonely. Maybe there is even another person in this neighborhood who is lonely.

But it's kind of reassuring to me that kids can still do weird stuff, like we did in the 90's. That he could just walk up to the house and start knocking.

If you are going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill

I walk much. I walk in the cold. I walk the dog. This is not the exercise I am used to. This is not squats, push-ups, crunches, lifting, or even really strenuous cardio.

Today I admit that being a college student is killing me right now. Or rather, being a college student who works as well. Everyday with the Spanish, and the traveling.

I am a full-time traveler. I have to plan my whole day and carry along other outfits, pack food, stash second pairs of shoes, make sure I am in the right car for the day. Catch the buses. Try not to over or under-eat. Try to drink enough water but also worry about when I will be able/allowed to go to the bathroom. Wear leggings under my pants. Live at different houses, try to remember where I am going to shower, and how to set my alarm clock.

I get just plain mad at people who don't have to do this like me.
But then I remember I signed up for it, and that I get bored when I am not doing it. But I can't wait for Spring Break.

And I wish I could get their TV to work, here, so I could turn off my brain for a minute.

I am learning

That if my brain is tired enough, it will just start to spit the Spanish out.
My life is a weird thing of going to Spanish everyday, and right now I am thinking of it like a spaceship and I show up there, and we all get in the spaceship and speak another language the whole time, and I like everyone there. I like that there is a med student who looks at me like I am a million bucks every morning, even when I don't wear make-up, or I am wearing weird clothes and tennis shoes. I like that I have girlfriends, and that I can rely on them to be my spanish speaking companions. I like that I can eat my PB&J and they don't care. I like that my teacher barely has any accent, so I can understand her Spanish in increasing amounts. I like that it is only an hour.

I travel approximately 8 hours a week because of the Spanish schedule. And every night I do the Spanish homework. I am a slave to spanish.
I am knowing too much about Hugo Chavez than I ever wanted to.

I am delirious and my knee hurts from crashing in front of the hipsters, still.
And my hair got shorter. And I am living with a dog who is really nice. She doesn't poop on the floor, and she doesn't even bark at me.