Here I Go Again

Let's talk about FEELINGS. 

Mainly about how I want to eat all of them. 

Has this ever happened to you? Where somebody starts screaming at you, or you are feeling sad and bored and instead of going okay lets DO something you open the fridge you raise your hands and go LET'S EAT ALL THE FEELINGS! 

No? Is it just me? 

How do you change the sudden feeling of hunger to something more? Cause I just realized that I'm tired of spending all my money on food to make me happy. I'm tired of sitting in my house with the blinds drawn and I'm tired of looking at myself and going well with this stomach I could take some amazing pregnancy shots. You know the type. Where you thrust your stomach out as far as it can go and you do the awkward hand framing moment. I'd take a picture and show you but I'm afraid that you could never get that image out of your head and one day when we are at the grocery store awkwardly picking melons our eyes would meet and we would have to hurry and turn away. 

So just when I was ready to browse maternity pants online (Jeans just have no give! Joey from Friends) I realized maybe the food baby that I'm creating is the tumor of lies, anger, resentment, frustration, lies, and boredom that I've been telling my body that I'm okay with. So there is going to be a change a brewing. I watched a video on a lumpectomy the other day in staff meeting (while it was really disgusting and oddly entertaining at the same time) I thought if I was a surgeon would I ignore all this huge tumor or would I do something to save the patient? 

I decided to save the patient. 

More tomorrow.   

Hold On

I can honestly say that this is not the best year of my life at this moment.( This is not a boo-hoo honey child kind of post btw.) I read once that the moment that when you can't look at yourself in the eye anymore it is time for you to change something. I hate change. I always joke that I'm two steps away from being on hoarders. I hold on to things. I hold on to objects longer than I should because someone I treasure gave it to me. I hold on to letters. I  hold on to tee shirts. I hold on to memories. I hold on to people longer than I should. I hold on okay. I'm like freaking Wilson Philips. I will hold on for one more day.

Because I hold on too much to the past that I forget to look forward to the future and find myself in a giant rut of sameness. I like routine but when you wake up and your life is Groundhogs Day one must make a decision. Do you accept the sameness, the comfort of the known area or do you jump off on the boat and set course to the island of uncertainty?

Yet when I look at the moments that have changed my life for the better (AKA USU, Running races, and starting this blog) have come out of pure moments of spontaneous decisions. No time for pro and cons list no moments to sit and go is this good for me? I said yes and let the consequences follow.

I've been dealing with this issue for the last three years. Do I change my life? Is there room for another moment of spontaneous decisions?  If so where and what do I do?  I wish I could turn my life over to all those well meaning people who say this is what you need to do with yourself and say here's your chance here's three months for you to make all the changes perfect the flaws that you see within me. Go ahead. I'll sit right here.

Sad thing is though I'm not in a Zac Efron movie. I will not be 17 Again. Nor do I really want to be. Here's what I'm proposing to do. I had an a amazing AH-HA moment.  One of those moments that makes you sit up, the hairs on your arms tingling with a little bit and you sit up and go okay!  I learned from the Oprah preacher from her life class about honesty. Her cohost was Martha Beck who talked about being honest with ourselves. Apparently our bodies don't like to hold on to secrets and lies. It seems our brains get occupied on these thoughts and bury them deep with in us. So the secrets lodge themselves in us the lies sprout little fat cells and become the cancer of self doubt attacking all the positive thoughts, the happiness and soon the conversation that we have within us gets muted.


After this whoo whoo aha moment I realized that I had to focus on three areas in which would allow me to have a real conversation with myself they are 1. The Physical  2. The Spiritual 3. The Mental. I'm not going to publish what those individual goals are. but those are the areas I'm changing.

Apparently I'm having a Good Bye to Sandra Dee moment.

Sunshine on my Shoulders

You know you are going to have a good morning when you wake up and you find yourself belting "SUNSHINE! ON MY SHOULDERS MAKE ME HAPPY!" cause I figure that's what every body in my apartment complex wants to hear at 5:15 in the morning. Why am I so full of song this morning? I'm not sure. I blame the Suave peppermint shampoo. I'm pretending that I live in London and hell. Cause it's so smoggy and hot. What can I say? I've been very bored.

Last night was an epic fail on being a productive human being. Since I'm TV free I don't watch all the fancy TV shows (In Color!) but once in a grey moon when I'm doing laundry suddenly I get sucked into some wonderfully trashy reality show. Last night's down fall was "Project Runway".

Project Runway and I go way back to my Sophomore year in college when Bravo used to do  these all day marathons on Friday nights. Now I wish I could say that my Friday nights were full of crazy adventures (most were) however some nights I just wanted to wear my fat pants eat a pint of ice cream and get in bed. I loved it. Loved the dramatic contestants who would design these truly outrageous outfits and be all "No you notice me! I'm an artist!" I found myself saying make it work to my roommates and co workers. The years went by and I lost the free cable and found myself in the cold dark world of being a grown up.

So last night as I was doing the laundry at my grandparent's house after spending all day lounging at the pool I turned on tele-vision and there to my wonder and horror was "Project Runaway." Worse still it was a marathon. Oh goodness there went my day. I had started off with good intentions full of plans to clean and organize and work on creating world peace. Yet instead I spent 4 hours watching crazy artist freak out when they had to design clothes for real people.

Oh reality TV how I have a special place in my heart for you. So now as I prepare myself for work I hear Tim Gunn in the back of my head going "Make it Work." Make me work indeed Mr Gunn.

I Like Sunrises.

Wee. This month has not been as exciting as I had planned. When you graduate from school August no longer has any appeal. Its just another hot nasty smoke filled month to get through till fall comes and we can all get back in our fat pants and blame it on the holidays. Or perhaps this is just me? 

I need the running inspiration fairy to come visit me. Thanks to the broke diet I've been eating a lot better than I have the last few months. Ice cream and I broke up. We are still friends but the magic in our relationship has well withered. We no longer have to be together all the time. In fact I don't even have any in my freezer and I haven't had any in there for quite a while. Who knew we would end this way? I thought I would just end up like Lenoard (from the Big Band Theory) and become lactose intolerant. 

Well that's my update. 

Hope that makes you feel better about yourself. If not I'm sorry but its really smokey, hot and I'm bored realizing that my life has become really boring. So if you want to come and cause some big dramatic moment in my life I'd be ever so grateful. 

Really. 

I mean it. 

Dance With Somebody

Dear Blake, 

Today you were spotted with the top down on your MINI convertible around 5:30 pm singing "I Want To Dance With Somebody" at the top of your lungs. Though our sources cannot confirm there may have been shoulder thrusting and finger snapping. May we remind you that this is in violation of the convertible code. Please detest this behavior immediately. Last week you were spotted listening to "Like a Virgin" if this behavior continues serious consequences  may occur, such as public mocking, honking or worse wolf whistles. 

Sincerely, 

The Concerned Convertible Association. 

 

Wincing The Night Away

The descent into hell continues...

When I was in the 8th grade I asked my sister and mother how does one "dance" at a dance. For my frame of reference was early Madonna videos and old MGM musicals and somehow deep inside I knew that framing my face or "vouging" or attempting a reverse foxtrot waltz wasn't exactly what was suppose to happen at a dance. My sister told me bluntly "With your sense of rhythm the best you can do is hold on the shoulders and push the poor girl around the gym till the song is over." My mom being a little bit more revealing said there are four dances every man should do 1. The Electric slide. 2. Boot Scooting Boogey 3. Heaven forbid the Macarena and lastly though its fallen out of favor 4. The Hustle. She and my sister promptly gave me a quick tutorial in each of those dances. That was the extend of my dancing education. From there I've learned the running man and the sprinkler. What can I say? I'm multi- talented. 

So while Karisa and I were traveling around the room we began to observe other dance styles. After a terrible swing dance attempt we both looked at each other with the look of shared understanding. Each of us in some point of our awkward dancing careers had that person who had fallen for the Big Band swing dance craze and taken one lesson and thought they could teach the world to swing! Sadly every time someone either ended up on the floor or with a black eye a mark that some dances are best for Dancing With the Stars or as Karisa put it "What happened in 1944 should stay in 1944".  

As the hour winded down Karisa leaned in and said "Just wait till the lights come on there is a reason why they say wait till the lights come on before you get their number".  I thought how could this be? All those who  were swaying awkwardly making bad conversation (so how are you? What do think of this Dance? Here's my name stalk me maybe?) I thought maybe someone would meet their eternal companion giving the bishop a point on his scoreboard of marriages during his tenure. You laugh but in the last three wards I've been in hidden in each of their offices lies a scoreboard of winners and losers. Every single time they get one married off they get a bonus or something I swear. 

Suddenly right at 12 the lights came on and there was a huge gasp! from the whole group the awkward swayers suddenly saw each other in the harsh glare of institutional lighting and the whole here's my number call me maybe moment changes to a the very polite but firm "thanks SO much but I have to be going" and they run back to their various posses to dissect the evening and bemoan the state of being singleness in the car till the various drivers push them out of the car with a sympathetic better luck next time or a walk it off walk it off. 

Right after the lights came on they played Fun. We are Young which of course I had to comment on No early Madonna but a song about getting high in the bathroom is the perfect closer song? Seriously? Bad move DJ bad move! What's next promiscuous sex in the parking lot? However they cut the song very abruptly and that last bit of my comment soared through that cavernous cultural hall and I got the dirty Mormon look. The same look you get when you mention feminist, gay and lesbian, or choosing not to have children in Sunday school. To save me from melting deeper into the gym floor a very awkward closing prayer was said and Karisa  and I sweaty and giggly  from dancing dropped the top off of Bertie and sailed off onto the interstate. 

As I looked over I was so grateful to have a friend so sympathetic to my awkward dancing, my sarcastic wittiness, and I felt that tightness in my chest let go. Though it had taken some time I had found a moment to make peace with all the awkwardness, the wall hugging, the feeling of pure torture of my previous high school dances melt away and realized that dances can be fun when you have the right person beside you. 

The other glorious thought was that I was in California and I would never see any of these people again but could mock them forever in my memory. 

  

May I Have This Dance?

(For Karisa)

A Socially Awkward Adventure into A Mormon Single Adult Dance

or. What the hell Was I Thinking/High School Flash backs or Why Blake Can't Dance.

An air of perpetual horniness hung about the room. A glaring reminder in the absence of paper streamers that everyone in the gym  was a virgin. And was probably going to die as one. As I entered this Josie Grossie * (Drew Barrymore in her finest role in Never Been Kissed)  flash back I realized I was in single adult hell. I was at a single's adult weekly Friday dance. 

For all of the non Mormons in group the LDS church has created a whole special division focused on the single people from ages 18-30. With hope that we will stare at each other passionately sitting next to each other during church and covertly let our hands touch upon the hymnals  get that rather erotic feeling feel guilty and marry and have lots of babies.  Its the classic Mormon romance story. Its suppose to be what we yearn for. Hence the reason why I'm standing in this gym with this awkward feeling in my chest. The best way to describe it tight pounding in my chest, can't breathe and the most I can say is Hee. Its like being throwing back into High School with the knowledge that your life didn't change very much. Breathing deeply into my paper bag I begin to survey the room noticing all the various cliques and groupings. In the front of the DJ we have the hipster, popular pretty Mormon girls and boys (yes the majority are blonde 18 to 20 and are here for the summer from BYU or BYU I) and the returned missionaries with the partial mohawks and very tight jeans (which confuses me if they are so tight how will they make those righteous babies? Does not compute!)  or in plain high school speak they are the plastics and the jocks.

Several spaces away we have girl posse. The girl posse is a bunch of girls who dying wish is to get married they are the girls whose pinterest boards are flooded with wedding ideas and are sitting on their hope chest waiting for "Mr. Peter Priesthood". The problem with girl posse is that they clump together in one huge mass of desperation that if a girl was singled out to dance the rest of the posse would feast upon her innard like a lions on a lone gazelle. One enters at his own risk. They are however a great source for who is dating who and the stats of all the new members of the wards (they have this information stored like baseball stats.) so a visit to girl posse is worth a hello.

Moving on from girl posse is the Star Wars/Star Trek boy gang. These fellows are the functioning members of the church they do the awkward hand dancing and sway but are friendly they are what makes the church function due to their dedication they do their home teaching, they volunteer for the crappy canning shifts at the food distribution warehouse. Though they have the eternal debate going on about which is more accurate Star Wars or Stark Trek they do try. However they seem to lust after the plastic mormon girls and every time they enter the pretty mormon group they are pushed out of the dance circle with a closing of ranks. No word is ever spoken one minute they are in the circle the next they are pushed out.

On the out skirts are the mini groups of people who came to say hello be seen by the bishopric and then go get drunk at a friends house or move on to more exciting adventures. Then by the snacks lies my kindred the rather obese people whose parents drove them here and so they hurry and eat the store bought cookies and punch in quick motions in order to hide their feelings of self loathing and deep hatred for P!nk.

In the middle of these various circles rises the DJ and the bishopric who watch to make sure all of us keep that air of virginity around us. Some go as far to bring flash lights to single out those who bump and grind just a wee bit too much. A note on the DJ he is only allowed to play clean fast paced techno music, no early Madonna and nothing that mentions "Satan" (Sorry had to throw in a Dana Carvey Church Lady reference).

Karisa and I visit these various cliques saying hello since we are here to be to truly dance. Ever seen my running man? Its priceless. Karisa helps me see that though the activity comittee may try to make me feel low about myself bringing back the feeling of high school awkwardness that a dance is meant to be danced at not to be mocked viciously in my head. However there is a redeeming lesson in here somewhere in this twilight looking gym full of hormones..

More tomorrow...