How I'll Spend My Thanksgiving Break

Guys, I have three days off this week. Normally I don't like downtime, but it's due, so I'll take it gladly. Lots of people have asked me how I'll spend my Thanksgiving time. The short answer is "alone, and I'm happy that way." People often don't accept that and ask, "what could you possibly be doing to make that so enjoyable?" so here are my plans, in no particular order:

1) Paint my ugly stairwell. Whoever lived in our apartment before we did decided that nothing makes white walls more attractive than brown and grey sponge texturing detail. This makes me think that the previous tenants were cave creatures or Fraggles or something who think that water damage and mold are tres chic. After living with the ugly for over two years, I'm going to repaint the whole thing bright white. I've already spackled in preparation for this. I'm a spackling machine.

2) Eat cinnamon rolls and grapefruit for breakfast while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This was a tradition I started at BYU when I'd often spend Thanksgivings alone. I'd get the amazing Rhodes rolls that I think they only sell in Utah and other Mormon-heavy places, pop them in the oven, and eat way too many of them while watching the parade. The grapefruit stems from when I was in college and my mom sent me giant grapefruit care packages for the holidays that I didn't go home, and also, I love grapefruit.

3) Watch "Legally Blonde: the Musical." I saw this on MTV for the first time on Thanksgiving of 2007, and since then, the musical and the holiday are linked in my mind. And plus Christian Borle is sooo dreamy!

4) Make (and eat) only the Thanksgiving foods that I like. I actually don't like Turkey all that much. I was a vegetarian for a while when I was a teenager and didn't really miss it then either, so really, I can do without it. I'm going to make stuffing from scratch (that's right), gravy, cranberry sauce (I'm just going to be lazy and use the canned stuff here, but I do make a mean from-scratch version for public consumption), sweet potatoes (sans marshmallows), and in lieu of pie, pumpkin ice cream. I've really got to go to the store sometime before Thursday.

5) Clean my house somewhat more thoroughly than I've been cleaning it in the recent past.

6) Watch some stupid movies. Not sure which ones yet, but maybe I'll Redbox something.

7) Sleep in longer than anyone else on Black Friday.

Enjoy your Thanksgivings, everyone!

Doomy Eyes

I'd call Victor von Doom an expert in this sort of thing.

I must start out by saying that I love my home teacher. He's great for all kinds of advice, but quite enjoys doling out advice on the whole men/women thing. For instance, this sage and novel piece of wisdom:

"Never underestimate what some intense eye contact can do."

Whoa, you mean you're supposed to look into a guy's eyes if you like him? Who knew?

He went on to explain how he was recently on the receiving end of some girl's (and I swear, this is what I heard here:) "doomy eyes."

I remarked that I'd never heard that before; I had heard of "bedroom eyes," though. He gave me a sort of strange look and told me that they were the same thing. We finished the home teaching lesson and afterwards I wrote the following as a Facebook status:

"Got a home teaching lesson about 'doomy eyes' tonight. Buckle up, men!"

My roommate Chris reads this and says, "It's not 'doomy eyes!'"

"What is it then?" I asked, assuming I'd heard incorrectly.

"Do me eyes!"

Much laughter and mocking followed. I had to admit that "do me" made much more sense than "doomy." I just thought that maybe the look in the eyes was like a brooding and foreboding storm of sexiness. The laughing and mocking continued.

I was granted a small* favor when Doree, meaning to say "wanton eyes," made a reference to "wonton eyes" (I tried to find a cartoon of a little Chinese dumpling with googly eyes, but my Google Image searching turned up nothing).

With this (as well as the fact that "doomy eyes" makes me immediately think of the villain from a not-great comic book franchise), I think I may be starting to pinpoint the source of my romantic problems.

*This was about as consoling as the time when Joey Tribbiani was getting mocked for getting his head stuck in a turkey and tried to mock Ross Gellar for saying "Squatternut Bosh" instead of "Butternut Squash" (Friends "The One With All The Thanksgivings").

"It Might As Well Be Spring..."

...and I don't just say this because of the wonderfully, unseasonably warm weather that we've had the past few days (which seems, sadly, to have come to an end).

This song, written in 1945 for the musical State Fair (I never know whether to italicize or use quotes with musicals) contains some beautiful lines, like...

"I am starry-eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing"

or...

"But I feel so gay in a melancholy way.*"

These, and a dozen other lines from a dozen other songs can only begin to describe what's going on in my brain lately. I'm not one of those who likes to scrawl every single thought or emotion all over the internet. Usually I like to have something with a plot to put on this blog. I don't even have a story to describe why my brain might be doing the things that it's doing. It's all very strange.

I have this odd sense of paradox within me, as if I'm feeling compelled by this overwhelming sense of urgency but at the same time, quite uncharacteristically calm and relaxed. I'm torn between doing what I think is expected/proper/safe/sensible and giving in to the green glowworms† crawling under my skin that make me want to run and jump and twirl, both literally and metaphorically (for whatever twirling could be a metaphor).

I want to move‡. I want to stop looking out the window and jump through it instead. I want to fast-forward through pretense and formalities and skip ahead to the good parts. I want to go ice skating. I want to kick my feet through a pile of crunchy autumn leaves.

At the same time, I just want to sit on my sofa at home and watch them fall.

It might as well be spring.

* I love internal rhyme.

† Do you remember the movie "James and the Giant Peach"? I'm talking about those little glowing green things that were in the bag that enchanted the peach and all of the bugs. I couldn't find a picture on the internet, but they're jumpy and jittery, and I imagine they have some sort of electromagnetic and tingly properties.

‡ This is absolutely metaphorical. I hate moving with boxes and stuff.

Musings at the Office: Zweiter Streich

Dear telemarketers, I've got your number. That "there's no message, is there a more convenient time I can reach him/her" of yours isn't fooling anyone.

I took a call from someone whose last name was "Mormon." I wanted to ask if his name was Jack or if he had a wife named Molly. If I took a message, would I be writing down the Words of Mormon?

I am the queen of the Konica Minolta Bizhub copy machine. I know where all of the paper jams live.

All the downtime at the office gives me time to do all of my scripture study and General Conference talk reading. This made me slip up in my phone answering today when, instead of saying "Attorney Such-and-Such's office" I said "Eternal Such-and-Such's office."

Being around people who do divorce law makes me never ever want to get divorced, and therefore kind of grateful for this whole Gospel thing that teaches us how to get married correctly.

Someone keeps turning the air conditioner on. It's not warm in here. Oh well, I guess it's not my utility bill.

I actually took the correct length of a lunch break today. Leaving the office helped. It's hard to entertain oneself in the break room for a full thirty minutes.

It's been really rainy today. I'm not wearing particularly hazardous shoes, but I almost fell on my bottom twice today--once in the lobby and once at the sandwich shop. My sincere thanks to the man standing on the stairs in the lobby for pretending that he didn't see my lack of gracefulness.

My Music: Part III

Because it's been a little over three months since my last post like this (and because I want to cover up the fact that my last blog post was about the contents of my sinuses), I present the latest version of my "Top 25 Most Played" songs on iTunes:

1. "Gravity" - Sara Bareilles
2. "Sway" - Bic Runga
3. "It Won't Be Long Now" - Original Broadway Cast of "In The Heights"
4. "Grace Kelly" - Mika
5. "Come Home" - OneRepublic
6. "Prayer of St. Francis" - Sarah McLachlan
7. "This Year's Love" - David Gray
8. "Fields of Gold" - Eva Cassidy
9. "Crazier Than You" - Original Broadway Cast of "The Addams Family"
10. "Breathe" - Original Broadway Cast of "In The Heights"
11. "Bring On the Wonder" - Sarah McLachlan
12. "21 Guns" - Original Broadway Cast of "American Idiot"
13. "The Story" (Grey's Anatomy Cast Version) - Sara Ramirez
14. "You Give Me Something" - James Morrison
15. "Tomorrow" - Jeremy Messersmith
16. "Skeleton Song" - Kate Nash
17. "Thinking of You" - Katy Perry
18. "Happy Ending" - Mika
19. "Running Up That Hill" - Placebo
20. "Breathless" - Corinne Bailey Rae
21. "Maybe I'm Amazed" - Jem
22. "Organ Donor" - Jeremy Messersmith
23. "You Don't Know Me" - Michael Buble
24. "Blackout" - Original Broadway Cast of "In The Heights"
25. "Promise Me This" - Pancho's Lament

I'd say this is a pretty respectable list, despite the fact that three of these songs are featured in the first two episodes of "The Vampire Diaries" (points to anybody who knows which three!). I expect that some of my favorite winter (not necessarily Christmas) songs will be moving up in the running pretty soon.

Phlegm

I wish it were more socially acceptable to talk about the sheer volume of stuff that comes out of my nose when I'm at the end of a cold.

It's marvelous, really. I've seen enough cross sections of the human skull to know roughly how much space is in the sinuses, and something isn't adding up.

Unfortunately, we can't talk about these things. I do try to be fairly discreet about my bodily functions, and I don't have to show anyone anything or talk about what color things are, but after expelling everything that ever happened from my nostrils, there's just this tremendous sense of accomplishment and I just want to tell someone.

Maybe my family is just cursed with lots of phlegm. When my mom was in high school, she was sitting behind this really cute guy who turned around to talk to her just as she was in the midst of one of those volcanic sneezes. I feel like this is going to happen to me. I'll be in my third consecutive minute of nose-blowing that rivals the sound of seventy-six trombones and the man of my dreams will walk in.

He would most likely be disgusted and appalled, or, you never know, he might be like, "You have a sinus infection? Tell me all about it!" And then I'll know that it's really true love. I think in this scenario, the man of my dreams is a Jewish otolaryngologist.

We would have the most beautiful, nearsighted, valetudinarian children.

A Tribute to Cindy-Face and Lielzebub

Let's go back to the Fall of 2005. I was nineteen, a semi-sophomore at BYU, one of the newest first altos in the BYU Concert Choir, and the roommate of two lovely ladies to whom I've dedicated this blog post.

I could go on about how Cindy has one of the least weird-looking babies I've ever seen (seriously--out of all the newborn pictures she posted, there was not one that looked like a terrifying lizard monster), or about how Liel has this vast cultural knowledge of all things French and fascinating, but instead, I'll post some "documents" that we drew up when we began living together, just to prove the collective awesomeness that was the three of us in 602 N 800 E #103*.

DINNER SCHEDULE!!!!

Monday

• Cindy and Alexandra-Performance Psych until 6:50
• Do Dinner on Own
• FHE Night

Tuesday

• Alexandra-Bio Lab until 6:50
• Liel and Cindy make food that has leftovers
• Gilmore Girls!!!!

Wednesday

• Cindy and Alexandra-German Choir until 5:50
• All cook something together (Easy stuff)
• ALIAS!!!!

Thursday

• Rotate who cooks dinner each week

Friday

• Will have dates maybe (in which case, eat something small before so date doesn’t think you’re a pig)
• Entertain with fun parties that will show everyone how amazingly wonderful we are!

Saturday

• Will have dates maybe (see Friday)…then again, whom are we kidding? We’ll never have dates. We’re sad.
• Eat Homemade Pizza together!

Sunday

• All cook something together
• Bond

We actually kept the dinner schedule going pretty well. We stopped watching "Alias" because it got weird, but our Thursday night dinners were quite memorable. And we didn't really have dates that often, except for one time I turned down going to dinner with a boy I liked because we were making the homemade pizza (I got lectured because of that).

ROOMMATE MANIFESTO

1. Condo=Love. Love the Condo; Love your roommates; Love yourself.
2. Don’t do drugs.
3. All boys who will be spending excessive amounts of time here must be approved by other two roommates.
4. No making out in the house. Do it outside, away from the window. Goodnight kisses are okay.
5. No hair in the sinks or showers.
6. Conserve electricity-be sure to turn off lights when not in the room.
7. Last one up at night: turn off all lights, lock door.
8. A good thorough cleaning job will be done at least once a month. Schedules and job divisions will be provided later.
9. If you’re on a date with a boy you like and the two of you are at the door and there’s no kissing going on, the roommate(s) at home have every right to play “Kiss the Girl” out the window to get the point across.
10. If you’re on a date with a boy you don’t like and he’s trying to kiss you, the roommate(s) at home have to save you by opening the door at an “inopportune” time.
11. As is made clear by rules nine and ten, we will wait up for you if you’re on a date.
12. Boyfriends will not interfere with our friendship.
13. Put the toilet lid down!
14. Don’t piss each other off. And if you do, apologize. Don’t throw things or shout obscenities. Unless it’s for comic effect.
15. Obey all rules of common courtesy.
16. Be flexible.
17. Don’t pull a you know who with a you know what.
18. Don’t burn the condo down. The condo=love. See rule one. Do you want our love to burn? Huh? Do you?
19. Learn something new about everyone once a week.
20. Don’t sin anymore ever. You reject from the war in heaven. Just kidding. Okay, the real twentieth rule is that we should pray together. The roommates that pray together, stay together. Until one of them gets married. Or graduates. Whichever comes first.

THE END!!!!

These were our rules. We talked about making out a lot (probably because we mostly didn't until Cindy got her boyfriend-who-is-now-her-husband in June).

Why We Should Have Boyfriends:

1. We are dang cute!
2. We’re funny! Hello, have you met us?
3. We can sing…that’s hot.
4. We’re smart. We got into BYU; that’s proof of that.
5. We cook. Maybe not like [NAME HAS BEEN DELETED], but we can still cook.
6. We won’t cheat on you.
7. We have excellent and flexible tastes in movies.
8. We will not make you do stupid things.
9. We won’t call you strange names.
10. Cindy is a good kisser. Alexandra learns quickly. Liel will not be conscious through it; she’ll be compliant.
11. Cindy plays video games.
12. Alexandra has amazing rhetoric.
13. We speak various languages.
14. We’re adventurous and willing to try new things.
15. We keep the Honor Code religiously.
16. We will take you to the temple; you want to go to the highest degree of the Celestial kingdom, right? Well, we’ll get you there.
17. We shower regularly and brush our teeth lots.
18. God owes us for years of sucky boys and breakups.
19. People our age are getting married! We need to catch up.
20. Boys make you warm. It’s cold outside. We need warm boys.

We made a list, because men respond to logical arguments better than any other form of seduction. I don't know how I was included in number 14.

*Not one of us lives here anymore, so don't bother starting your stalking there.