Dreamcatcher Edition #1 - Fighting Demons

I've been having some seriously crazy dreams lately. Honestly, I don't know what I'm doing wrong in my life to make my subconscious feels like it needs to string random images, people, situations, etc. together into snippets of pandemonium in my cranial folds that would light up a brain scan like an aerial view of Cincinnati.

A dream interpretor on the radio, who I listen to with interest every week, despite some of her far-fetched interpretations (including an explanation of "you have to give your new business your best shot" to a woman's dream involving her shooting people on the street), recommends keeping a dream journal to follow common themes and perhaps gain insight into your effed-up subconscious.

And so here it is, the start of my weird-a dream journal:

A few nights ago, I had to fight the demons that were in the shower in my parents' basement. I could see them dimly through the frosted glass door, and stood questioning weather or not the sword and shield I had in hand would be enough to defend me from, and defeat, the demons.

Cut to a new scene inside Caesar's Palace where I was enjoying the company of my demon-fighting team: Nicholas Cage, Charlie from Lost, and Michael from Arrested Development. We had won the challenge of both defeating the demons and doing so better than the other team who we were apparently competing with. Our prize? A free dinner at Caesar's Palace.

That's right! Free dinner at Caesar's Palace! Read it and weep, suckas!

I was completely enjoying my neverending pasta, yet Nicholas Cage, in his full Nicholas Cage-ness, was monotoneously furious that he was not being served bbq asparagus pasta, for which Caesar's Palace was apparently famous, but was not being served that day.

Finally appeased, Nicholas Cage awaited his bbq asparagus pasta when the waitress came with our bill and complementary heroin pills. Charlie from Lost was, as you can imagine, particularly pleased by the after-dinner confection, and broke his in half for easier snorting.

Warning: Don't try to snort after-dinner heroin pills at Caesar's Palace! They are for oral consumption only!

Disgusted by our horrific manners, the waitress made sure that we were escorted from the palace.

Outside, we met our counterparts, aka. the team that lost the demon battle competition, who were fulfilling their punishment of painting Caesar's Palace

: George Sr. from Arrested Development, Teller from Penn and Teller, and someone else that I can't remember, who were about to be arrested for using too much paint. Oh, and they were all drunk, because the paint was full of scotch - which coincidentally made George Sr. act a lot more like his twin brother, Oscar.

My Photos from Yellowstone

Here are some photos I snapped while in Yellowstone. All are taken with my crazy camera with a broken screen. There were a lot of shots with the subject only half in the frame, but I think these turned out pretty awesome.

We're Fighters, We Are

Remember that time that I got called a hunchback with wonky eyes and high cholesterol? I do. Alas, 24 hours is not enough time to fully suppress the moment when a bubbly, 20 year-old chiropractic assistant assessed my body and pointed out all its less-than-human characteristics.

But I'm a fighter, I am, and so is my 5 year-old niece, Sariah.

While my self-esteem was being reduced, joint-by-joint, wonky eye-by-wonky eye, Sariah was simultaneously fighting her own little battle at Primary Children's Hospital. A 3-hour surgery saw half of her little kidney removed and an artery re-routed to the remaining half.

Her dad sent me this picture of her, still sleeping from the anestesia:

And here she is just waking up:

Such a cheerful little thing.

So the day Sariah lost half a kidney, I learned I am crooked everywhere, even my eyes. I also have high cholesterol and was told to lay off the red meat. Funny thing to say to a vegetarian.

So be grateful for your unclogged veins, your straight spines, and think of the children when you give thanks for your kidneys.

Treat them well.

Do I Really Care? Probably.

I watch the Bachelorette.

It's unfortunate, yes, but I can't help it. It's like when you see something so grotesque and disturbing that everything in you is begging you to turn away and spare your corneas and memory-retaining wrinkles in your brain the image, but no matter how hard you fight yourself, you just can't stop staring.

My relationship with the pseudo-reality tv show established, I bring you the knowledge that tonight is the big finale. Tonight is the night where dresses are required to be floor-length, balconies are required to be cried from, and doomed relationships are required to start their spiral.

Why do I care? I'm not sure. The Jillian-thing:


has already eliminated every single worthwhile guy on the show, and now it's down to the gut-wrenching decision between Mr. Baggy Eyes and Captain Boring (yes, I am very proud of myself for recognizing, and fully utilizing, the fact that "Kyptin" and "Captain" rhyme) who, oh who will it be?

Honestly, I don't care. I don't like either of these guys, and I don't like Jillian. Why then do I watch? Why then do I glue myself to every second of airtime that this trainwreck inhabits?
Because it's on tv, it's suspenseful, and I've watched the whole season thus far, how could I miss the ending?

I never thought I'd say this, but I hope she pulls a last-season-ratings-gimmick and dumps one of these guys:


To bring back one of these:

Things that are Making Me Giggle Today

#Uno

While playing this game last night (only with summer-oriented words, not Halloween-oriented), my friend, Laura, had "Summer Lovin' " tapped to her back and had to ask yes or no questions to guess what it was. One of her first questions was, "is it a motion?"

#Deux

This picture:

Cross-eyed scary lurker cat? Check.

#Drei

This video:



Many thanks to Petunia Face!

Yes, I am a Girl

Anyone who knows me, and 82-percent of the people who have met me, even in passing, know that I am completely incapacitated by, and irrational in, my fear of spiders. I'm constantly looking for that little scuttle in the corner of my eye, and I do a thorough check of my bedroom every night before going to bed. I also list not having hairs tickle the backs of your arms in that may-actually-be-spider-legs kind of way as a perk of having hair shorter than any of the Hanson brothers'.

Just looking at pictures of spiders makes my heart make the jump to hyperspace. Even this makes me a little skin-crawly:
Mostly because it's a spider with a child's face and hands, while still retaining its original spider face and spindly legs. Or maybe because it's a spider with another spider attached to its belly. Or maybe the fact that the antennae on top are not correct, as spiders do not have antennae. They do, however, have these icky pincher things on their mouths that they use to bite you, and so I imagine those pom pom-topped antennae as arachnid jaws of death that will certainly take a bite out of my plump flesh from under my sheets the second I slip my toesies into bed. Normally, I pull the sheets all the way back to check my bed, but it is inevitable that on the one night I do not do so, this spider-child will be hunched in the folds and will most certainly devour at least a tiny chunk of my being.

Much to my terror, a certain giant, cavernous web has been building up above the exterior door frame at my parents' house. I have never seen the spider, but the evidence of one being there is giant and cavernous.

Last night, I strapped on my courage and decided to do something about it. While watering my mom's flowers, I turned the hose up all the way and took aim at the dreary spot. I flooded it for a good five minutes, completely destroying all shred of web, but never saw a spider get drowned out, which was the satisfaction I was looking for.

Unsatisfied and dappled with hose-water, I realized that I had to go through that very door to get back in the house.

After staring at the door for ten minutes, eyeing the door frame for the tiny wriggle of spider legs splaying over the edge that I was sure I would see any second, I decided I better make an Indiana Jones go at it and dash past the danger to safety.

The second I started for the door, however, I imagined nothing else but a disgruntled spider dropping on my head the second I ran under his water-soaked perch.

And then I was pushing the door open hard enough for it to rebound from the stopper and waver on its hinges, leaping through with a shuddering gag, almost there, and

PLOP

right on top of my head, the fluid measurement of eight wiry legs and a grotesque, furry body's worth of water hit me. Can you say cardiac arrest? I would have had I had the non-aspirated with fear breath to even sigh it. Instead, my mind was registering the sudden spike in blood pressure that resulted from the water that had gotten between the door and the frame being released onto my head at the exact moment I flung myself through the doorway.

The return of rational thought calmed me just long enough for my non-rational side to kick in again and I started frantically pulling at my hair, ripping it out of a ponytail in the most painful way possible, feeling for the wriggly little body that I knew may very well have come down on top of my head WITH the gush of water. I wasn't sure which was worse, knowing there may be a spider in my hair, or finding out that there was in fact a spider in my hair by planting a finger on top of the sopping, quivering thing.

Nearly convinced that there was nothing in my hair to find but clumps of wet hair, I felt the crawling start at my hairline and quickly descend down the goosebumping flesh of my back. I began ripping close off just as my cat had discovered I came home and was beginning to wind herself between my feet nonchalantly.

Coming to the end of the story, it was a droplet of water that took a shortcut below my shirt and down my back, not a spider. The experience made me think, however, that water must have a practical joke inclined sense of humor.

When I left for work this morning, a new sticky tunnel of grey-ish webs had been formed above the door.

The Chronicles of Dating - Installment #5: When Your Teacher Has to Set You Up

Every high school has that handful of teachers with endless rumors about their questionable past. At my high school, it included all the pedophile gym coaches, the Driver's Ed coach that got a student pregnant (totally NOT a rumor, by the way - they got married after she graduated), and the humanities teacher who was rumored to have posed for Playboy.

The Playboy bunny is who set me, and all of her students, up on a date.

This sounds weird, but nothing was weird for Ms. Lees. Every class started with her having us recite Shakespearean verse, complete with actions. The majority of our grade was based on participation in over-the-top sketches about famous artists. The last day of class consisted of her reading personalized letters for each of us out loud. We also had extensive discussions about the color code test and listened to her read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight out loud during story time.

So, like I said, setting her students up on dates with each other and having us write a report about it when returned was not entirely weird for her at all.

Ms. Lees claimed she drew names out of a hat, but I have strong suspicion that she was secretly extremely deliberate in her pairings.

It was, slightly embarrassing to say, my very first date ever.

I was set up with some boy named Nick (totally don't remember the last name, but you would like to know, wouldn't you?) who lived disturbingly close - too close for comfort - to me, and who made me go pick him up. If you have, as we all have, gone on an awkward date, imagine that weirdness amplified by the situation I was in and the disagreeable moment I experienced when picking up a guy from my class who I didn't want to go on a date with and who was acting like he didn't really want to go on a date with me.

We went ice skating, and he didn't know how to ice skate. We spent most of the night engaged in awkward conversation and in awkward juxtaposition with the rink wall.

He thought I was weird because I chose broth over hot chocolate out of the hot drink dispensing machine, and I thought he was weird because I was too shy and embarrassed to be on a date to think anything different.

In the end, thank you Ms. Lees for breaking me into the high school dating scene in the most awkward way possible.

Oh, almost forgot!!! After the uncomfortable date, I didn't speak to or hear from the guy until he came into my dance class looking for me to be a subject for his year book committee assignment, at which point I apparently said I wanted to be a pediatrician when I grew up. What the devil was mixing into my brownies that day? Whatever it was, it made sure that I was completely oblivious to the obvious flirtatiously-inclined coincidence that he sought me out to put me in the yearbook.

I Once Again Have My Coworkers to Thank...

...for this extremely entertaining yet simultaneously horrifying video!

I HEART IT SO MUCH!!!

I saw this on facebook, and I do declare that it is the most amazing cake I have ever seen in my entire life.

I Kiss the Ground of Salt Lake City

There are many, many, many, many, many, many reasons why I am thanking every stinking star, moon, asteroid, natural satellite, comet, nebula, and piece of space trash out there that I do not live in Provo, Utah.

There are many reasons why I love Spoon Me and became a fan of it on Facebook.

What do these two things have to do with each other? Spoon Me's Facebook page has provided me with yet another reason why I am glad I don't live in Provo by pasting the evidence directly to my newsfeed.

Please view this photo of the exterior of the Logan (also a Utah college town) Spoon Me on opening day:


And now take into account the more populated opening day of the Ogden Spoon Me:


Now my dear readers, get your barf-bags ready for the exterior shot taken on the opening day of the Spoon Me in Provo:


It seems to me that the college students, as well as the non-upper-education-inclined residents of Provo, have forgotten how not to act like you are in high school, or a lemming, or a Twilight fan, or any other member of any genre associated with mass swarming for the sheer fact that everyone else is mass swarming and it is therefore the greatest thing you could possibly do with your time.

Here are a few more photos from the Provo event that also provide examples of exactly what is wrong with Provo:

Crowd surfing? At a local frozen yogurt joint?


Girls dancing on the counter while that guy looks creepy? At a local frozen yogurt joint?


Thank you, thank you, sweet heaven that I live in Salt Lake!

Happy (late) 4th of July

Horrendous is the day that I realized these videos existed nine days after the patriotic event.

However, these videos cannot be ignored, late as they may be.

Enjoy!





P.S. The Muppets are incredible and represent everything I love about America!

I'm Still on My Michael Jackson High...and apparently these people are just high

Here are a couple awesome comments I found on Michael Jackson videos on Youtube. I'm sure there are hundreds more out there just like these too.

i Feel So Bad For Him That Everyone Is Startin To Appreciate What hes Done When He Died
He's Always Been A Ledge God Bless Him You'll go donw in history michael
love you

RIP Michael Jordan! Your name will be remembered FOREVER!

Family Luau

Here are more pictures from my family luau, including more pictures of the awesome cupcakes!

All the pictures were taken with my camera with a broken screen, so there was no way for me to see what I was shooting. I think I did pretty well, but if some aren't great, that's why!

New Story for an Old Photo!

In the future, the groom in this picture will go back in time in a stainless steel car and interact with his parents in a way that causes his mother to fall in love with him instead of his father. This results in a tense scenario in which our woebegone groom becomes unsure of his own existence in the future. A picture he keeps in his pocket of him and his damsel begins to show him fading away into nonexistence.

Will our leading man be able to Johnny B. Goode his way Back to the Future?

More Mr. Jackson

I know, I know, none of us can get enough of him right now. Certainly not me!

I Can't Believe He'd Throw Me Under The Bus Like That

It is no secret that I'm an unashamed fan of a select handful of reality tv series. The Bachelor/Bachelorette enterprise, however, continues to decay all faith I have in reality television.

All switcheroos, secret girlfriends, hidden agendas, google-eyed douchebags, and "not here for the right reasons" aside, what the devil was ABC thinking when casting this mess a second time?


She wasn't that great on The Bachelor, and the hotdog thing was never as cute as producers made it out to be.

Don't see the hidden double-chin and gravel-filled sinuses? Don't worry, you just have to watch her talk for 30 seconds.

And the aforementioned ick isn't the worst part about this Kid Sister-sized Canadian. I mean, look at her fashion sense:
Worst of all, she's as dumb as a post and an abysmal judge of character. I mean, hello!


This guy had me wanting to up-chuck-a-rama in my handbag long before his sleezeball character was ever revealed. He epitomizes everything that makes my stomach do the Macarena up my spine and squeeze its contents out my nostrils about guys. But Jillian eats it all up, and even after she learns about all his douchiness (including a girlfriend), she still chooses to keep him!

THEN they brought back Mr. Baggy Eyes himself. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS WOMAN/SHOW?

Needless to say, I will religiously watch the remainder of the season.