oh happy day

(1) full 8 hrs of sleep. not uninterrupted, but still good.

(2) found the rest of a gallon of apple juice that i forgot about in the fridge. yum.

(3) went to the optometrist. got some new contacts, not too expensive, and my prescription didn't change (not more blind!)

(4) yummy peach scented soap

(5) payday

of course, i have to work tonight, so by the time i get home 10 hours from now i probably won't be as cheerful... but for now, i feel good.

out there...there's a world outside of yonkers

and all you see is where else you could be
when you're at home
there on the street are so many possibilities
to not be alone

um, tonight turned out to be a really nice night. the best i've had in a while i think. which is funny cuz there were a lot of times when i thought that was definitely not possible. maybe i should worry less. but maybe that's what makes me appreciate little things that otherwise wouldn't seem so special.

women's appreciation

ANGELA: "and when we get mad, you always ask us if we're on our periods."
MICHAEL: "i have to know whether you're serious or not."

i don't know about getting mad, but i do know that there's been a lot of crying around my apartment today and i'm gonna bet the next week or two won't be any better...

oh, and i got a fortune cookie today that told me to reevaluate my plans for the future...that's a little scary...

it's gettin' hot in here...

so leave the frickin' a/c on! crap! what is wrong with my roommates?! so, this morning i realized that i was starting to feel a bit clammy, but not the cold kind, the hot kind. so, i went into the living room and realized that, even though i posted a sign next to the thermostat that says, basically, "upon pain of death, do not turn this off, and please leave it set between 68-76 deg" (only lengthier and with more detailed explanation/reasoning why this should be done). is that really so hard? i personally prefer it around 70-72, but i stretched that a bit to make it easier, but sheesh! apparently that's just too much to ask, because when i came out it was off again and the temperature in the apartment was back on its way up in the 80s. do they not realize that our apartment is on the 3rd floor and it gets freaking hot up here? this is only one of the many roommate complaints, but recently the one which has been the most obvious. things being messy i can live with. i'll just go in my room...but if it's 85 inside all the time, this i cannot abide. argh!

okay...rant is over...

and maybe they're just trying to help me out...you know, "...so take off all your clothes" style. unfortunately i have to get the boys inside before that does any good...

you look like a victoria's secret kind of girl...

i do? well, that's what my friend bryan told me today. of course, the bag in my hand might have been a bit of a giveaway. if he hadn't been with his fiancée i might have taken that differently...haha!

story time

i am vaguely acquainted with a guy named paul. i could easily be better acquained with him, but for a variety of reasons i have specifically avoided this. let me tell you why...

so, a couple months ago amber brought this guy, paul, over to our apartment. shortly thereafter he became amber's NCMO buddy. she of course got a bit too attached. (she's a girl, so that's basically inevitable.) he then introduced her to another "friend" of his (= NCMO buddy). amber and this other girl got along pretty well, since they were both in the same situation. and then the three of them would hang out. that's weird for them. at my apartment. that's weird for me. and amber would talk to me about it all the time. she was all freaked out, for obvious reason, yet the whole thing was obviously dumb and pointless. then he started cuddling with andie. one night i came home to find all four of them at my apartment. andie asked me about a friend who was coming back to provo soon. and then paul told me that if i needed some practice before my friend got home that he'd be happy to help. i assured him that i didn't, and hightailed it outta there. amber freaked out later that night about him and andie, and finally admitted that paul was a punka$$ and showed surprising strength in deleting him from her phone, facebook, myspace, whatev. cutting off all contact. this didn't last very long of course b/c he still had her number, and knew her friends, etc.

in the meantime, andie, who has a really bad track record as far as getting mixed up with the most douchebaggy retarded guys available, started hanging out with paul even more.

so, i came home from work tonight to find paul, amber, and the other chick, in my apartment watching a movie. what the crap?!

and of course he's also "friends" with a girl i work with. not just any girl, but the most annoying, weird, and incapable chick in the joint.

for the first time in my life, i believe that jerry springer is real and not staged.

seriously, though...this guy is a total sleeze. he's got a whole harem full of the most insecure, vulnerable girls he can find. i'm surprised he hasn't moved down to southern utah and made it a more permanent arrangement.

even though i've managed to get myself into some less-than-perfect situations, it makes me feel good that i'm not desperate enough to take this loser up on his offer. not yet anyway...

angsty

angst: a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair.

as michael scott says, "wikipedia...is the best thing ever. anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information."

wikipedia: angst

i'm feeling angsty tonight.

funny haha

today was a good day. church was more entertaining b/c i wasn't sitting by myself like usual, my visiting teachers rock, and i took a long nap which was nice other than the fact that my apartment is frickin hot b/c the a/c is broken. grr. but this was supposed to be fun, not angry, so skipping that...

my friends rex and clinton are really funny. and i think it helps that i'm a little crazy and tend to elicit funny responses. some of these funny comments include:

Rex: No, you're not good enough to do me. I only want Bridgette to do me. (this is only funny if you're kinda scandalous like me though i guess... ;)

Clinton: Hi, I'd like a small Bridgette with an energy boost. (funnier when you know that they're both at least a foot taller than me...)

Malorie: did you go to the ward hoedown?
Me: yes, and I fell and hurt my ankle.
Rex & Clinton: she was the ward hoedown!
(um, did they just call me a hoe?)

okay, maybe those are only funny when it's late at night at really hot in my apartment, but, yeah...since it was really late and hot it was funny. pass the jamba stash! yum! and follow it up with a little youtube. haha!

ow!...things that make you want to say bad words...

(1) sprained ankles. i've had lots. and they hurt. like now.

(2) when it's @$#%$& hot in your apartment and the a/c won't work right. (also, when your roommates don't even turn it on, which is why it then doesn't work...)

(3) when you watch a movie and it's really stupid, but you want to see how it turns out so you watch the whole thing, and it never gets better, and you wish you hadn't. or, when you don't care how it turns out, but you're watching it with friends and don't want to be the party pooper if they like it, but they don't either, so you really should have ditched the dumbness and done something...anything...else

(4) when your sprained ankle hurts and pushes other thoughts out of your mind.

but then there are always good things too...

(1) people who go far away, but then come back. that is happy.

(2) people you don't even know who make you laugh and whom you can talk to so easily that it takes you forever to say goodbye.

(3) when you feel smart for little tiny things, like proper usage of the word whom.

(4) cheap stuff. not crappy stuff, but things that are quality for small amounts of money. like stuff on sale. like, especially at this week's "semi-annual sale" (nudges and winks)

(5) free stuff. especially life necessities like food. especially good food like jamba. yum.

(6) singing in the shower or car.

(7) singing in the car with a friend. (i put that in it's own number in order to avoid confusion about singing in the shower with a friend...scandalous!)

(8) summer nights where it isn't humid so that it actually gets cooler at night. so refreshing and invigorating.

so, i successfully put twice as many happy things as bad things. *sigh* oh, good.

"sometimes you just need a little human contact"

i grew up in a family of "touchy" people. we hug and kiss a lot and don't have personal space. i mean that in the most normal, healthy, non-freakish way possible.

but my sisters both moved out of provo recently, and most of my close friends are married or missionaries, and though i keep in contact, it's the letters/facebook kind: non-physical contact. and i'm starting to feel some negative side-effects. like, i recently saw a friend for the first time in a long time, and was seriously upset when there was no "hello" hug. i honestly think that my upbringing has programmed me to equate physical proximity with friendship and acceptance. (or, conversely, physical distance with emotional distance and rejection.)

so, can you guys and gals give me some lovin'? geez! i'm feeling really rejected and lonely lately, and if you could just stand a little less far away, and maybe give me some friendly hugs once in a while that would make me feel a whole lot better.

romantic ideal

a friend described me today as a romantic idealist. i find this somewhat humorous because i generally feel that to my male friends i most often express highly cynical attitudes regarding romance, especially in reference to myself. however, i suppose that this description may be based upon the assumption that my cynical self-expression stems not from my own beliefs, but rather from the inconsistency caused by my inability to find a manifestation of said beliefs in my own life. greater extremity in the cynicism of my expressions would thus indicate greater extremity in the romanticism of my ideals. however, neither may be linked directly to my actual attitudes, but rather to some quality in the specific topic or person who elicited said expressions.

personally i think i have pretty average romantic expectations. i want somebody who will take care of me and let me take care of him. i heard an analogy somewhere once about carrying around a bucket of love and wanting someone to share it with. me too. he doesn't have to be super-spectacular, just somebody that i'm happy to be with who's happy to be with me too. and yeah, i'd probably rather that he be similar to me in terms of attractiveness level, but seeing as how i have a rather negative view of myself in that area, i'm more lenient on guys too.

splinter theory

i had a really fun discussion with my friend forrest yesterday, where he shared with me the splinter theory of dating/attraction/marriage/yadda/yadda/what-have-you... i had a similar theory, but i think the way he expresses it is a better operationalization (yes, that is a word), so i think i'll defenestrate mine and adopt his. let me share my own specific description of this with you...

first, let's take a look at a standard/normal distribution bell curve.

now, let us assume that the horizontal axis represents a scale of attractiveness, with the vertical scale being simply the value of n, the number of cases.

the left-hand tail, roughly the lower stanine*, represents those unfortunate individuals who are undeniably unattractive; the right hand tail consists of those blessed individuals who are undeniably attractive; and the vast majority of people lie somewhere in between.

this theory posits that persons within the upper and lower stanines tend to date/marry members of their own stanine with extremely high levels of exclusivity, whereas persons in the middle stanines interact with relative fluidity. attractiveness is, of course, not the only predictor of dating/marriage options; however, other things such as personality, interests, skills, or wealth tend to have a much stronger effect within the three previously delineated attractiveness groups than between them.

that being said, it is the people in the 2nd and 8th stanines, who are those most likely to cross over these barriers between groups, who create the most interesting situations, and possibly also the most frustrating. but this is getting long, so i'll let you imagine up some examples for yourself.

*stanine: one of the steps in a nine-point scale of standard scores. similar to quartiles, but sets the mean/median as the center of a step rather than a division between steps; the odd number of steps draws from the premise of the famililar Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, etc.) that only with an odd number of steps can there be a true middle, or neutral, category. the common 1-10 scale has no true center. most assume a 5, but this is a fallicy since there are six steps above it, but only four below.

orgy juice

we scared evan pretty bad today. we aren't used to having a guy around, especially a little highschooler. i don't actually think he's scared, he just likes to tease us, by yelling "rape" or "i need a chaperone" whenever he's alone with one of us. how did we do this? well, we have a few running jokes...
(1) he was involved in the starting of the "orgy juice" nickname, (see yesterday's post) and as such we would give him a hard time whenever he was alone in a room with a girl, so maybe he's just trying to make it clear that he is in greater danger of being raped than being a rapist
(2) a comment was made about someone making someone's body not a temple. this was actually months ago, but we think it's a great phrase and reuse it often.
(3) we make up contests for how young, attractive, male customers can win free smoothies. i won't say what they are, but you can guess...
(4) "things i would do if i weren't mormon"...mostly just the basics...drinking, drugs, sex...mostly sex. especially prostitution. jamba doesn't pay very well. but not the dirty-street corner kind. we've planned out a referral system, so basically it could be the "orgy juice escort service"... we'd build up specific clientele, and have already discussed some individuals who would be pre-approved.

i'll stop there, lest i get too scandalous.

kids say the darndest things...

so, i went to get my transmission serviced today, since i've been driving like a maniac lately.

the place i go is sort of a family business. there was a little boy climbing all over the desk. he was highly entertaining, even if it did distract me from my copy of Road&Track. his dad works there and his grandpa owns the place, he didn't have a babysitter, so he was playing in the lobby/office area. the receptionist was sort of keeping an eye on him, but basically he was just there goofing around and playfully harassing the customers. watch out, i'm gonna zoom this [toy motorcycle] over there. hey, if you want another magazine i can get you one. are you sure? it looks boring. what kind of car do you drive? oh. why do you like lexus? i hate lexus. i like chevy. and yeah-maha. true story. i asked YAW-ma-ha, and he said, "NO. yee-AH-ma-ha." he probably says fark instead of fork too. haha!

but, still a great place. faster than they said and cheaper than i expected.
check it out... J&M's transmission clinic. 855 S Univ Ave Provo, east side of the street, on the south end of the auto/industrial area by the bridge.

and when the kid doesn't have a babysitter it comes with free entertainment!

babies!

a couple weeks ago at my sisters 2nd of 3 wedding receptions, our old roommie, pamela, told us that she and jeff were going to have a little pam&jeff. she called it her little avocado, because that's about how big it is so far. she told me today that it will indeed be a little pam. i'm so excited! pam is one of my faves, and when her and jeff finally got married i was freaking happy. ask the chalice of evil. she was at the reception too and was probably aware that i was way more happy than single girls usually are at their friends weddings. aaahhh!!! (that is a happy yell.)

so, i've been working a lot lately with this kid named evan. he's pretty cool. mostly because he's a good worker and very cooperative. i ask him to do something, he says "yes ma'am" (or sometimes "yes'm"...highly entertaining), and does it. no whining or complaining or attempts to push things off on other people; even the really yucky jobs. one of the other managers told me that if she were 5 years younger she'd have a little crush on him...i agreed, but with the stipulation that i be 10 years younger. he's pretty much a baby. really funny though: the other day some girls came in, wearing some byu gear, and one left him a note with her number. haha! we got a good chuckle out of that. also, we kid him a LOT about the other high-schoolers, since there are way more girls that work at jamba. one day he and one of the girls went to get something from the freezer, and were in there kind of a long time. probably just didn't know where things are since they're new, but we gave them a hard time about it. susan (who is flippin hilarious!) told them to stop making out and get to work. "this is jamba juice, not orgy juice." so now there's kind of a big joke about making out in the freezer. (boys, keep that in mind if you ever feel like starting some rumors...come by and i'll give you a tour of the walk-in freezer. we can keep each other warm;)

i love susan. she was really mad today. her apartment complex is kicking her out at the end of the summer because they sold her contract to someone else for more $$. retarded. especially since her roommate signed a contract with the stipulation that they stay together in the same apartment, but won't let her out of hers. she was pretty upset and tried to talk to them about it, but they suck. and so she tried to get another apartment for fall somewhere else, but they called her back and said that due to a bad reference from where she lives now they wouldn't let her live there. so in a couple months she will be homeless. big mess. don't live at the omni apartments on 5th west. they're nice apartments, but the management sucks. maybe they'd be happier if they were having some babies.

this ain't a scene, it's a [gosh darn] arms race

ryan, you're always wanting someone to beat up...

embarassing

i wish to share with you the great admiration and respect with which i have come to regard you

it's funny the things you find when you clean your room. i realize that i'm not one of those people who live in the past after all. i mostly block it out. which is good because my past is often pretty embarassing. i've done and said and expected a lot of really silly things, and at the time they seemed totally reasonable. maybe they were. 20/20 hindsight. clarity can be pretty harsh. just makes me wonder how much of what i do and say and expect right now will turn out to be the kinds of things i spend my life trying to forget. i usually think of myself as a relatively rational person. i guess i might be wrong about that. really wrong.

maybe i just spend my life immersed in some type of imaginary world, mostly constructed of misinterpretations and incorrect assumptions.

denial.

why...how...do people refute a phenomenon of which they are a prime example? do they honestly not realize what they're doing? do they have a reason for their behavior which they think legitimately excepts them? and if they are an exception, can they not recognize that they are in deed simply an exception and that the general rule is still valid?

this is something that often frustrates me. but maybe that's what life is a lot of the time. we're all too afraid to face reality and so we spend our lives in denial. and once in a while we realize just how silly we're being.

now at last i know
what a fool i've been

when the spring is cold
where do robins go
what makes winters lonely
now at last i know

i watched vh1 today. haven't done that in a while. feist. pretty chill. not really feisty. i like it.

i need you here tonight just like the ocean needs the waves

loneliness, boredom, yeah. malorie is out of town. that basically sucks all the fun out of the apartment. none of us are home very much as it is, but she'll be gone for the next week. but at least my apartment is really clean. i cleaned the fridge out today. and my bedroom looks better than it has in...months...i'm not even sure how many... lots. plan for tomorrow? finish unpacking...laundry...maybe some more cleaning... get my transmission flushed, and maybe an oil change. even though it's only been 2 weeks since the last one.

i put about 5000 miles on my car in the past three weeks. with all that driving, i've been listening to a lot of music, and i have a lot of new favorite songs. fun. so i took my CDs to listen to at work. mae. and my friend algot came in. wearing a mae t-shirt. said, "this is yours, isn't it?!" ha! it was pretty perfect. and great to see him too. i remember him bringing the destination: beautiful album to my apartment for us to listen to. good times.

You come over unannounced
Silence broken by
Your voice in the dark
I need you here, tonight
Just like the ocean
Needs the waves

how poetic. and yet, i wonder... in what way does the ocean need the waves? the ocean has waves, which are created by the wind: a transferrence of energy from the air to the water... but would a lack of waves cause the ocean to cease being an ocean? but in nature that would never happen anyway, not entirely at least. so, pointless question i guess. the ocean doesn't need the waves...the ocean inevitably has waves...so saying you need something like the ocean needs waves is like saying that to be without that thing would be like ceasing to be real...ceasing to exist. whoa...

that's one of the new favorites.

blog?

so, i've started using my facebook notes kind of like a blog, but decided that when i moved away from provo it might be nice to have a real one. especially now that i've become more involved in the 100 hour board these past few months. involved might not be the right word, but... i'm trying to be cool like them.

also, it seemed like a nice way to stay in touch with my provo peeps, with as little effort as possible. not that i don't love you guys, but when school starts up i know i won't have or take the time to stay in touch as i'd like or ought to. this seems better than mass emails or something. nothing is really more realistic than something, though.

so, if you're reading this and thinking, "okay, but you haven't left yet..." my response is: i know. but if i get going on it now then it'll already be a habit when i do leave. and i was bored. fragment. i know. get used to it. :)

however, i may choose not to unveil it until after i leave... tricksy... or i might get excited and just do it now... ha!

i uploaded most of my notes from facebook, and dated them appropriately. that way non-facebookers can catch up. or in case i become popular among strangers. i've always secretly dreamt of popularity... not really secretly though.

loose lips sink ships

i know some secrets.

(1) isn't really a secret, but i'm not supposed to talk about it. but when people straight up ask me i always tell. what am i supposed to do? lie? or just not say anything... but it's not even a secret! tons of people know! oh well...

(2) isn't really a secret either, but i found out from someone who wasn't sure they were supoosed to tell anyone. so i mostly only talked about it to people who brought it up first. but i'm pretty sure it's out now...

(3) is the real secret. and it's a pretty good one too. and the people it's about don't even know that i know. haha! luckily it turns out i'm actually good at keeping secrets that are worth keeping. unfortunately i then broadcast that i have a secret and then everybody asks me what it is. the fun part is that then everybody thinks it's about them. tricksy.

Xo... i like it... but i wonder if this line doesn't have a double meaning... kiss and tell, loose lips sink ships... are the lips loose because they're telling when they shouldn't, or kissing when they shouldn't?... maybe both...

reality bites

it hasn't quite bitten yet, though, but it's been nibbling away and it's really only a matter of time...

i got home to michigan to find that my old room had been redone for my sister and her new husband. makes sense. it's the biggest of the unoccupied rooms, and has it's own adjoining bathroom, so, more privacy for the newlyweds. and i haven't lived in it for years...but still...and the extra bed in with "the little girls" is taken too, leaving me on the couch...i can't help but see visions of lydia from pride and prejudice telling her older sisters that she had usurped their social position by getting married first.

and jacque and i moved all her stuff out of her apartment, packed it up in my car, and carted it back here. so with nickie living in salt lake now, i am painfully aware that the brinkerhoff sisters trio which has been in residence in provo for years has now been broken up, and i'm back on my own. which is kind of nice, but kind of lonely feeling.

i let jamba know which will my last day of work. i got a couple of packets from the gonzaga school of law this week, with registration information and stuff...t-shirt... and my grandma started telling me how she's getting my room ready for me. egyptian cotton sheets. mmm. (anybody wanna help me try 'em out? ...scandalous, i know... just couldn't help myself...) i am painfully aware that i will be entirely unable to fit anywhere near all of my belongings in my car, however, so there are some details that still need to be worked out.

so, as these last few months in provo turn into my last few weeks, i begin to feel a strange set of feelings, most of which ought to be preceeded by adjectives like "impending"... doom?... yep, that's it. the end of life as i know it. hopefully i'll manage to get a new one that's worth having given up on the old one...

*sigh*

so if you feel, as i have these past few years, that all your friends are leaving you, and i'm one of the friends who is leaving you... sorry. time to go start my new life.

and for all those of you who've suggested an alternate solution involving marriage and various numbers of children: thanks. i have of course seriously considered that option. unfortunately it turns out that option requires the involvement of another individual, male in my case, and i haven't yet found a willing participant. however, if at any time it should become an actual possibility i'll let you know if i decide to try it. ;)

in the mean time, i'm going to try out that whole studying thing, and you all can start thinking up some good lawyer jokes... :)