Update

I think my mind is clearer today than yesterday, yet muddier than ever. I talked to Jackie...kind of in a roundabout way I can't even take credit for, but I think most of the things that needed saying were said, in addition to the things that came across all wrong...and things will be alright. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but who really does? I really do like Jackie, and I respect how she lives her life even if it's not the way I live mine, so I feel awful that she's felt guilty in any way for the things she has no reason to be ashamed of. It's okay we're different people. I just need a change, and moving would be the easiest. That is, if it were easy to find housing.

I took down the ad I put on KSL and Jackie put up a new one. I don't know if it's possible to find someone who will work for both of us, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to see while I'm figuring things out. After I explained the me being a crappy mormon thing and wanting a new ward and roommates with LDS standards so it's not just one more thing making life harder than it should be...well, she said she wouldn't have alcohol in the house and wouldn't invite crazy people over. I feel bad, because that is so totally nice of her to make an effort like that because she wants to keep me as a roommate, but why should I have all the say in things? If I were her I would say so long and farewell. But we both like our house and feel comfortable there. That's kind of a red flag for me a bit. Anytime you're too comfortable with a situation it makes it harder to grow, and boy do I need growing. I let her know I'm not sure what I need to be doing right now, but that I need to be doing something different and that moving is the only thing I can think of that would fulfill that requirement.

At the time I was at the Institute building looking at the housing posting board; I think I'll be looking into calling those people tomorrow, as well as letting people look at our house. Who knows what I'm doing. I think I'll have to have a good long pray tonight, and maybe things will be clearer tomorrow--if I get lucky. I just hate not knowing things. I hate not knowing if there are people out there who I could live with who'd bring out the more social person in me that I used to be. I know that person is not one that most of you have met or remember--unless I'm related to you--but I swear it was there more than just occasionally from the age of about 19 to 22 or so. I think I need to peel away the layer of bitter left over from school and who knows what else to get to the core of my buried motivation.

And so now I'm very tired. And though I think I've come to terms with it in my tired state, this week off has really sucked. Tomorrow's Saturday and no camping or fun activities are occurring. The next week, however, I will miss my family reunion. I might call in sick. Only I'd inform my boss I wasn't really sick. We shall see.

Bombshell

This week has officially been what I would call "taxing." I've been struggling within myself for the entirety of the week on whether I should move out at the end of the month when Meg leaves. Or whether I should just stay and find new roommates. I had a nice little list of the drawbacks and benefits drawn up, and just when I thought I'd made the right choice, an immovable bolder gets thrown in my way.

I have to admit that the main reason that kept me indecisive on the whole moving matter, that is until forced to make a decision (Meg approached me and told me she was moving out at the end of August and needed to tell our landlord Stratford whether I'd be moving out in the next couple of days so he'd have sufficient notice to rent out the house before the semester started, or that I'd be staying and finding roommates of my own) was that I didn't know if Jackie would be moving out or not. I like Jackie a lot, but I've decided I just can't stand to live with her. Apart from being loud and making it all but impossible to sleep or study when she's in the house, I just really need to be living with LDS standards wherever I am right now, especially with how weak I am spiritually. I'd like roommates I'd have the option of going to church with, or who would at least bring the Spirit I am currently incapable of bringing myself. And of course I wanted less noise for my last year of school with as much studying as I'll have to do, and Jackie is anything but quiet. The F word shouted dramatically in a variety of contexts in a house where you can hear everything in every room just isn't doing it for me now. And I'm ashamed to admit it, because it's really not her fault, but her laugh drives me crazy. It's high pitched, comes often, and it alone is often the reason it's so hard for me when I'm trying to sleep at night or study.

So Meg approached me at the beginning of the week and said she and Jackie would both be moving out, only if I was leaving Jackie might stay and have her sister and her kids move in there, but they needed two rooms. With me there this would be impossible (Yippee!) At this point I was still flirting with the idea of moving out, because on my list of reasons:

1) I really want a new ward. I feel badly about it, and I know it's my own fault I wasn't social to begin with (working every other Sunday and having poor social skills as I do were not conducive to this end), and now it's no wonder people don't approach the girl whose been in the ward for 2 years who doesn't talk to people. But I really just want a new start.

I debated like crazy on what I should do, and after looking into places for rent I came to the conclusion that finding a place

A) as close to school
B) as cheap as mine
C) with as much of a room as I have

would be impossible. Actually, it's impossible to find any one of those things while also finding LDS roommates. And I love my house. Other than how uncomfortable I feel with roommates I'm not really friends with, I love everything about it. Plus there's definitely something to be able to choose and reject potential candidates where you will, as opposed to being the one chosen or rejected. And I figured that if I really disliked my ward and it came to a choice between my inactivity or someone having mercy enough on me to let me into a ward outside of my boundaries, I'd at least have a shot at the new ward thing. Or the possibility of going to my old ward with roommates. Plus I'm lazy. I have no desire whatsoever to move my many many small and large things alike into another place I know will not be big enough to hold them. The idea of staying became more and more appealing. So I posted an ad on KSL.com. I was surprised how many responses I got. Kind of exciting actually. The balloon in my chest inflated.

So I randomly get this text message from Jackie this afternoon (technically yesterday now) saying that she's decided to stay too. I was floored. Apart from not understanding why she'd want to stay (she isn't a student, she works in Sandy, and we've never held more than a 5 minute conversation together--after all she was Meg's friend, not mine), I just can't do it. Both her and Meg somehow think it will be easier for me (I feel like they think her staying is a favor to me) to find one roommate as opposed to 2, but I've never been so stressed out in my life. I guarantee finding one roommate that both Jackie and I can agree on will be 10 times harder than 2 people only I have to agree on. In fact, if I can find anyone willing to live with Jackie, that tells me right there that I won't be able to live with them. I feel bad, but I'm just really tired of having booze and swearing in my house. I don't want drunk people at my house on New Years, or Superbowl Sunday this year. And now everyone who's coming to look at the house is expecting LDS standards, and I can no longer give that to them. I can't tell Jackie how to live her life any more than I can tell her to move out. After all it's just as much her place as mine. How do you go about telling someone these things? I'll have to have reasons for my actions whether I stay or go, and it will be highly awkward for sure.

It's now 630 in the morning. I haven't been up at this time in ages...at least not when I haven't been tired. I've been so anxious trying to figure out what to do that I can't sleep. I made an appointment for a girl to come look at the house before Jackie dropped the bombshell on me, and I'm totally stressed about what will happen when she's here and exposed to Jackie while touring the house. I have all these people coming to look at the house--thanks to the resounding success of my well written ad--and none of them will be acceptable now. And I find myself wanting to look at other places for me, and thinking about doing both that and showing this house until I find the courage to tell Jackie what I'm thinking...there's just not enough time in the day.

I really wish I could afford my own house right about now.

I haven't really been taking many pictures lately, since I've gotten used to not having a camera, then suddenly having one again. And though things are happening to me, I don't really feel like writing about any of them. Strange.

But I do really, really feel like writing. So here I shall write:

Apparently dodo birds were not really as stupid as people think. Nor were they as fat. I learned this one night at work when in boredom Jon and Brock and I researched it. We also learned that Wikipedia does not like it when you add falsehoods or fibs to their entries. The dodo bird was simply used to living in a place (on some island near Africa in the Indian Ocean) where it had absolutely no predators, and it evolved from its pigeon and dove family members without flight, taking advantage of the fact that it was so large and had no competition. You could say they were quite admirable in their fearlessness towards people; a friendly bird. And one that didn't taste good. I always assumed they were hunted out of existence, or that they were pests, but actually they were mainly killed out by the animals people brought with them (cats, pigs, dogs, rats, macaques). And mans' ever present goal of wiping out nature, a game in which we are currently ahead. They were fruit and seed eaters, had greedy appetites to make it through the times of sparsity, and as such the ones in captivity were easily overfed--and of course the old paintings and drawings that have survived are of those fattened birds. They were, however, quite large in and of themselves. 50 pounds with 9 inch hooked end beaks. I guess with such little wings you have to compensate in other ways.It's name could have come from several things, namely words sounding like "dodo" that meant "sluggard" and "plump-arse." People didn't so much like them, and so they kind of just dwindled until someone did realize they weren't around any more. A sad end for a mistreated bird that even now is mercilessly mocked in today's age for being so trusting. Sometime before 1700, and less than a 100 years after they were discovered. They then were regarded as a myth, because who could believe in such an ungainly and strange looking creature? Then they found skeletons, Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice and Wonderland" with a dodo character in it, and the rest is history. You could say that Lewis Carroll is mostly responsible for how well known they have become--which is not bad for a guy who may have written it while flying high on opium.

Yesterday I researched ear wax. I was really really busy till the night hit, and then there was a lull in which this took place. My research was questioned a few times until I started talking to Carrie about it, and we had a serious conversation about ear wax candles. I for one would like to try them (and who knows, maybe I'll start hearing things correctly, but they're harder to get a hold of then you'd think). I think people are overestimating their abilities and claims, and understandably some people have probably lit themselves on fire. We live in a world where glazed kettle corn no longer exists because people can't follow large red warning stickers about not opening it until it cools.

Meh

So I know I promised pictures of Germany, but I popped in all the cds with my pictures on them just now and my computer has decided not to read them. I can't figure out if it's because my computer is a mac or if it's because I bought the cds in Germany. Probably a combination of the two. They seem to work fine in everyone else's computers. I'll have to get them from Emmy.

Here is a picture of my nephew I put on here for no other reason than that I like it. And I don't have a specific picture for this post but feel weird having no picture at all.

Anyway, I'm off work and not accomplishing much. I've found that during the summer if I don't have school, I sleep too late in the morning, then go straight to work, stay up too late doing nothing, and then start the process over again. As a side effect, I accomplish nothing and feel exhausted. Then on my off week I'm exhausted and fritter away the hours as well. I have lists of things I want/need to do, but man have I become good at sleeping whenever there's daylight. I did celebrate Canada Day at William Jame's Weenie Roast yesterday, so that was awfully exciting, and there's some sort of Mud based event happening on Saturday in Moroni, so I might hit that up. I opted not to do the whole Lagoon thing for the 4th this year--my sister Kim and her husband started this tradition a couple of years ago that I've been pulled into, but it's hot, I don't really dig Lagoon's rides in my increasingly older state, and it just keeps getting more expensive. I have fun with them and their 2 kids, and the last 2 years my lil sis and her husband have been there as well, but we're both opting for the low key celebration this year. No money, and no exhaustion. Perfect. So this year me and Ash are planning on a bbq at my parent's, or possibly my oldest sister and her family's house in Lindon.

It's kind of amazing that it's so late in the day already. I've decided that the events for the day include doing laundry and throwing as many pots as I can so I can light up my kiln for the first time this week and have something to fire in it. I'm also going to see Wall E sometime today, if I can find the perfect time for everyone involved.

Some more mindless nonsense.

Have I mentioned how happy I am since school let out? It's like I'm a whole different person. A person without stress. it's kind of strange, but kind of not, because I have the kind of memory that holds onto things like rice in an hour glass and now it's mostly already been shifted into an unused corner of my mind. Sure, it's all still there, but you have to take the effort to tip it upside down to get it back to where it started after it's seeped away. So basically if I take the effort to remember all that's happened, say by looking at some of my last posts, I'm surprised by just how bad it was, because all of the bitterness and displeasure has since evaporated from the now. It's sort of a blessing when it comes to the bad things, and sort of obnoxious when it comes to many of the good things in my life. Hence the caving in and buying of the camera that allows me to enjoy and reflect upon my surroundings and look back at the good times. One day I'll take the time to take a class and actually become good at taking these pictures, but for now I'll put it off with all of the other things my mind lets go.

Here is a picture of me letting go on my hammock. Thank you Kristen, for this amazing gift. And thank you Stratford, for building a house with railing conducive to me whiling away my time.


I've spent the last two days putting together several bookcases. As in 3. I now have 4, so I'm moving up in the world. And of course with that I've partially cleaned my room yet again, yet have become tired doing so, and will put off the remainder for another day. Here is my dad with his beard thing he insists on growing until his doctor lets him ride his Harley again in august. Claire quite enjoyed pulling on the hairs.





Chuck E. Cheese was exhausting, as I spent the whole time being dragged around by children, specifically my twin 5 year old nieces, and one was always dragging me in the opposite direction while I was trying to watch the other stationary twin that had no intention of moving, as they were at that moment on some sort of fun making apparatus. I learned the heartache of telling children that they didn't have enough tickets to get the prizes they wanted, and it broke my heart several times and made me hate
the establishment, especially when I found out that the points are equal to cents. I wish I would have known that earlier, and I just would have bought them anything they pointed to and let them believe it was their tickets and skills at achieving the tickets that produced such rewards. They were awfully excited every time they won tickets. Man I love how excited they get and how I get to watch it and get excited with them for free. Anyway, after I found out the point system, I bought the remaining nieces and nephew blow up swords. Traffic in the area was horrid. Less people should be hired, and more cones utilized in their stead. Ridiculously confusing.


Afterwards I went up to Herriman with two of my sisters to watch Churtis and the twins play in an inflatable water slide. Like it has a pump like one of those bounce houses constantly keeping it inflated, and when removed it just deflates. Kind of nice. And later was a picnic in the park with friends followed by a movie.









Here are some pictures of Claire with a blanket. She is so cute to watch with it. And I absolutely adore how happy she always is. It's fetching awesome, and she's like that even when Curtis is smothering her with his brotherly love.


It really is amazing that they get along so well. They both adore each other, which I think is providential since they're both adopted.













Today I skipped my church again. I mean, I went to church, just not my church. I've passed the stage of anonymity in my ward, and I don't so much like it. Devin has the same thing going on in his ward, only his is later, so I went with him, which happens when I sleep through my ward. Is it bad that I don't like people knowing who I am and being nice to me solely out of Christian charity? I mean, I like them and that they have it, but it's kind of awkward when you've been practically inactive for the last year, and people occasionally saying hello and calling you by name is all the effort exerted towards you, with no realization that you're not around on a regular basis and that you're not as strong spiritually as you'd like. So I'd rather they didn't have it towards me. They really are nice people, but I've made an effort on not a few occasions to sit to and talk to people, and still I'm just kind of there. Leaving me wanting to go back to not knowing anyone and not feeling so awkward about having been there so long and still not knowing anyone well. I'd rather just be there for the religion part, and not the socializing. That said I either need to find a new ward with at least one friend, or find a new ward with no friends and get in and out as soon as possible, so I can focus on feeling the spirit and not feeling the awkwardness instead of the spirit I should be feeling. Man that all sounds more pathetic put down in writing. I swear it's not that big of a deal and I'm not sweating it when I'm not openly analyzing it, but it's become a lot like distance running lately, and I do hate feeling uncomfortable more than pretty much anything out there--which leads to developing my excellent avoidance skills. The next post I swear I'll do something useful and post some Germany pics.

I discovered a bruise on my leg today, which is weird because I've been too inactive lately to warrant a bruise on my leg.

So I changed my blog layout, and it's kind of throwing me off. I think I need more things on the sidebar, so that will be my next project.

Today I found and lost the bike of my dreams. Or at least a semblance of the bike. All they had in was the fixie version, and I refuse to pay that much money to have a fixed gear in this mountainous state, but I paid for the geared up version and apparently they're all currently stuck in Italy:( Stupid Italy, like they need all those bikes. So I plan on waiting around for a few weeks because it's THAT perfect, but man I'd love to be riding on it right now. Sumie was nice enough to come with me because she clearly knows what to look for as she's more knowledgeable in the area of bikes, and we looked around all sorts of bike shops today, and ended up finding it where we least expect to find any acceptable bikes. It was next to the B&D burger where we met Devin for lunch. So basically I can't join the bike gang they've started until I get the bike. Conditions of the bike gang are that we have to wear a reflective leg band. Check. Then we have to be willing to take on all the little teen bike gangs that are all over Salt Lake, with their stylish, yet impractical due to all of the hills in SL, fixies and matching tattoos (thus one can see reason number 2 why buying a fixie would be unacceptable). Check check. Unless we actually have to take anyone on. I'm not suitable for anything more than a sarcastic comment here and there.


Imagine this bike with a rack on the back and plastic rim guards on the tires to prevent mud or water from being thrown onto your back. Then imagine it 20 times prettier and lighter and magnificent in person.


I also dragged my little sis out to ikea yesterday and bought a bookcase, finally, so now I'll be more inclined to clean my room with yet one more place to put things. I still need another, both wider and less tall, but this will be a nice start for now. I was having a hard time looking for and finding really tall (though not so much that it wouldn't be able to be transported in my little Toyota Corolla), not all that wide (given the small area I've shoved it into), cheap, and not ridiculously heavy considering I had
to carry it up the many winding stairs to my house, by myself mind you. So now my room is just as messy as ever, but with one more thing in it. A very large, though now put together, thing. I'll get on it though. Maybe that should be on my agenda...in a few days. Unfortunately tomorrow is booked. I get to go to Chuck E. Cheeses in the day time (yay!) and eat pizza in the park in the night time. Man that's a lot of pizza I just realized. It's my nieces birthday, so I'm super excited to see all my adorable nieces and nephews, especially since I broke down and bought a new camera. In my defense, it was off KSL.com, so it wasn't all that expensive, and it was brand new unopened. Plus it's an exact copy of my old camera (see previous post entry for picture), so I can pretend it did make it's way home from Germany, if I stretch my imagination enough and also forget about all the pictures on the memory card that was in that camera that didn't actually make it back. Stupid, stupid Melissa. The park thing is a double date with two friends. It's always nice to date as a favor to a friend, let me tell you. I think I'll become a nun, once I figure out how to cultivate chocolate from cocoa beans. But at least I'm getting out. Saturday is semi full, complete with tea time at one. Man do I miss clotted cream and scones, the best part about living in England. The worst part about living in England? All the weight one gains from eating clotted cream on a daily basis, not to mention the heart attacks that will later ensue.



And lastly, I finally saw Prince Caspian today. It was pretty good, though the song at the end was unexpected and, I felt, out of place.

I wish I made more money.

So, it's been a long time and I've actually really missed writing on here. I think it subtly may have been affecting my mood, not being able to write what I'm thinking. Anyway, without my camera (which I've come to the conclusion will be staying in Germany if it hasn't yet made it back yet) it's just not quite the same. This makes 2 cameras I've lost out of stupidity (the first being the one I drove away with on the top of my car). I miss the pictures on the memory cards more than the cameras. I intended to write on here as soon as I had all my pictures, but since that won't be happening I'll have to make do with those I have. Thank goodness I had the forsight to download all of them onto Kristen's computer up until the point I left my camera in Lupe's car. Only I'm not really in the mood to post those now, so there you go.

RIP lost camera, I'll miss you

For the first time since summer's actually began it's actually gorgeous weather outside on my off week of work. It's rained every week I've had off till now. It really is amazing how much the weather can affect one's mood. I'm in a slight funk as of recent, and hopefully I'll pull myself out of it. Crazy to feel so alone in life when you have so much to live for. I'm thinking tomorrow will be my low key day where I can hopefully find bookshelves for my room, look at some bikes (?), clean my room again, read, and maybe draw some and throw some (on my pottery wheel). Hopefully I will feel the motivation to get things done. Maybe I will break down and buy myself another camera.

Today was a day filled with briefly looking into bikes (I'm in the market and I fell in love with one that has a similar design to the one in the picture), helping with my parent's business by flaming acrylic mounts in the garage, babysitting youngsters, and a birthday dinner for Dave at the Cheesecake Factory following my Mario Party on the Wii. I then proceeded to eat my feelings at home (via that pistachio cheesecake), so I'm currently feeling pretty okay. My nephew was pretty funny today, which most 4 year olds are, telling me stories about a "Jeff" who lives in America, Utah, and eats chocolate covered pink ants he gets at the ant store for every meal, and about Caxon and Baxon finding fluffy and skinny cows to make blankets out of, but not here on Earth because then we would have no cows. And apparently there are some people here on Earth who sometimes DO eat cows. I couldn't make myself tell him that we were some of those people. During the whole babysitting experience we watched Monster House, then played "Throw the Turkey," where you know, we threw and caught a turkey, and throughout all of this I learned that my 9 month old niece can be endlessly entertained if she somehow comes across a simple blanket, which she will then roll around in giggling for hours. Up until this point I thought that she was hard to take care of because she does not stay still for one second, and is curious about everything...though to be fair she is the happiest baby I've ever seen.