say hello, wave goodbye

When my siblings and I were much younger, every year my grandparents took us and our West cousins to stay the weekend in Park City. We always took an afternoon to ride the Alpine slide and eat lunch at the Park City Resort. My grandpa loves to tell the story about how one year, post-slide, I went blazing down the hill straight into the street. My grandpa chased after me and once he caught me, firmly chastised me because of the danger, which apparently both hurt my little feelings and also made me mad. Supposedly then, the next year I did the same thing, except...this time before I hit the street, I looked back at my grandpa with spite in my eyes and simply stuck my toes off the edge of the curb. I have no recollection of the events but the whole point of the story is to illustrate how fantastically amazing I am at holding grudges, and isn't it hilarious that at such a little age she managed to stay mad a whole year?!

And probably you can tell the story to anyone who has known me very long and they'd all slap their knees and laugh at the story because, ha! So true! Don't cross that Emily! So I've been pretty well aware in my life that I have a nasty streak of holding other people too accountable for the real or imagined hurt they've caused my dumb feelings.

As previously discussed, I figure that my tendency toward emotional intensity probably made me a boy mutant most of my teenage life (that or I was really ugly!). And to some degree, I've felt the same way about all other relationships too because sheesh, I was always hurt by something or someone. I think it just came from this stupid thing about me where I always assume I like everyone more than they like me. Which is weird cus while I am mostly boring, I'm still fairly awesome so it's not like I think people don't like me. Of course they like me! I just get nervous about how strongly I generally feel and then the reciprocation thereof.

So I started working on it, trying to get rid of it. And one of the very many reasons I love being an adult, is feeling like I've got it sorted out better now. I try to filter everything through a pretty heavy perspective screen, I take deep breaths, and I figure no one needs to hear me whine about how I feel. And of course, I know that doesn't always work, particularly the last one. During a school crunch time I know everyone around me hears about how stressed out I am, or when I really and truly have hurt feelings I'm likely to slide sarcastic comments about it into a conversation, but you know...working on it. Mostly I try to remember that geez, I've got a really easy life and sad feelings always pass and there are so many more important things in the world, so no need to be dramatic about me. I know that I'm really deeply affected by the people around me and that's going to continue, but everyone doesn't need to hear about it when it's on the crappy side and I don't need to take it out on anyone...I'm (mostly) in control.

So almost nothing is more frustrating to me than feeling something that I just. can't. seem. to. control. I feel like I really understand that poor Hulk guy, cus sometimes, though well aware of all the reasons I shouldn't feel emotional about a thing or a situation, I still just do. Probably everyone feels that sometimes right? I feel like when that happens it's hard for me to not shut off and to feel generally more sensitive; and I hate that. Probably if I was some incredible artist or a musician or something then that kind of crap would perfectly fuel masterpieces or at least get me a Rolling Stones cover. But instead I'll eat a bunch of sweets which will only fuel a larger rear end in this summer swimming season.

But don't cry for me internet...my large rump and I are going to lounge by the pool later on and nephew Larrybird is going to come any day and it's almost the 4th of July! The sun and new life and fireworks make everything better.

citywide rodeo

Despite a bunch of hoping, no nephew was born over the weekend. I know he's not even really overdue yet, but still, this baby is starting to make me mad. But at least he didn't come in the middle of the Morgan rodeo and ruin it.

hold me

So the past 7 days have looked something like this:

stress, run, laugh, Sterling!, 2.5 hours of sleep, run, Tron car dance party, run, Jeanine and Nate!, Big Gulp, Jacob!, finish, family!, food, school stress, sleepy, tummy ache, church, midterm essay, Fleetwood Mac, food, final exam, break co-worker's headphones, Janelle party!, final essay, Fleetwood Mac youtube videos, tummy ache, sleep past alarm clock, final essay, too much driving, fix broken co-worker's headphones, Stevie Nicks youtube videos, book club, M&Ms, Big Gulp, final essay.

Lots of things that required attention! And lots of fun! But not enough sleep and a weird consistent tummy ache all week. I think The Graduate and bed sounds like a perfect Friday night.

paper kitten nightmare

I just made an impulse purchase and I can't wait to get my grubby hands on all of it.


It's 25 sheets of stationary and 85 envelopes made from recycled maps. Once upon a time the paper to envelope ratio would have seemed off to me, but I feel like now I often have far more envelope purposes than stationary purposes (in fact, some of them look they could be perfect for sending mixes in the mail!). It's a lot of stuff still but as my mother's daughter, I believe I have learned to use, use, use when it comes to notes and pretty paper because otherwise, what's the point of having it? I have shed the days of horde, horde, horde like my elementary school self did with the likes of any Sanrio crap I came into. I would hate to use any of a Hello Kitty stationary set and instead liked to carefully arrange it in my desk at school and then sometimes look at it. Why are little kids so weird?

But yay for cool stuff from the internet! Send my your address and I'll send you something in one of my envelopes/write you something on one of my stationary sheets!


(by the way I'm totally supposed to be writing a paper right now that is due in like 8 hours)

you got yr. cherry bomb

This was going to be my dinner last night.

I figure I'll be better when I get married some day? Yes? Maybe?


Luckily, Naomi caught me and said she had made a pizza and it was in the fridge. So fresh basil and artichoke pizza was a much better option. Maybe I should just marry Naomi; she doesn't let me eat just spoonfuls of ice cream and I love her couch.

go your own way

My friend Janelle left today for a two month vacation to Italy. And though two months of lounging in Italy with handsome and hairy Italian men while eating delicious food is anything but sad, we still sent her off with a little good-bye party because who doesn't like a party? There were Italian sodas and cupcakes and Superman ice cream cones and Danny's delicious cookies. And I made us listen to Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits on repeat.

And then I took some bad pictures of everyone.

everywhere

I may have listened to this song 20 times in a row last night. I love Fleetwood Mac. And you...I love you whoever you are reading this.

All American All Tron

Hey Internet-
So as I've mentioned in two posts already, this weekend my family and some friends and I ran the Wasatch Back Relay. It's a relay race from Logan to Park City and the 180 miles are divided up among 12 people and it takes somewhere between about 19 to 32 hours to finish depending upon your overall team speed. There were like 570 teams this year and with 12 people per team, I'm sure everyone in Utah knows at least one person who participated and has heard about it. So the question is, how many photos of something that is potentially annoying to talk about can you post at once? Let's find out!

Friday morning, Luke speeding through the first leg

Luke's Isabelle and Dylan, aka THE WORLD'S MOST ADORABLE CHILDREN

Megan to Amber exchange

Megan and Mikey camera trickery!!

Subway

my gorilla run

first blister surgery

brother

wife to husband night exchange

Tron car/dance party car

second blister surgery

Saturday morning big brother Sterling surprise!

face punch Luke to me exchange

Katie's last run, best victory fist ever

this is how I roll

duct tape ace bandage

team!

group nap while the second van finished their final legs

nerds

Saturday afternoon at the finish line, this is a good idea of how All American All Tron functioned the whole time

Van 1 Megan, Amber, Emily, Luke, Katie and Mike

Van 2 Scary Clint, Kristen, Logan, Katie, Corey and Christopher


That's 22...too much?

born to run

This is 2006
Excitement!


Tractors!


Richard Paul Evans!


This is 2007
Mountains!


No Richard Paul Evans!


Banadam and Baneve!


This year we've got increased Clifford participation level, Mike and Katie and Corey back and three Wasatch virgins joining in PLUS minivans.

Just please bless Kayne West and Outkast and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are good enough to get me though.

Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games

My last ditch attempt to prepare for the Wasatch Back Relay tomorrow is making myself a kick-A playlist. I totally mostly crapped out on training this year and I start things off with a 6.7 mile run in the morning. Awesome!

About a month ago I plugged in my iPod and magically, everything disappeared. That's fine cus sometimes it's nice to have a clean slate, but I realized I didn't have my carefully crafted running playlist copied in my computer playlists. And again that's fine cus I needed to redo it anyway, but in throwing it together again I'm sure I'm forgetting about some good songs that I will suddenly desperately need when it's hot and I'm out of shape and still have miles ahead of me. However, luckily for me and the other 5 people stuck in a car with my slow pace, I remembered this guy:



Not only are Of Montreal one of the best bands around to see perform live (flashing lights, fantastic costumes and a hot spandex wearing lead singer), but they are also so much fun to listen to while running.

Now as long as no one gets eaten by a mountain lion, we'll be good!

iceblink luck

This happened yesterday and it was a wonderful.


This happened today and it was delicious.


Snoasis...you were the excitement of high school summer nights once English class and planned out paths from class to class were no longer available ways to see boy crushes. Your hour long line with little kids and BYU dates were well worth your icy reward. I love you Snoasis and I promise your Fort Union address won't keep us apart this summer.

skin is, my

You know when you're frustrated with a bunch of things and you list them in your brain and then there is like one kind of unrelated thing that sets you over the edge? Well I hate what gold discovery at Black Hills did to the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie and I wish I could go back to 1875 and kick General Custer in the crotch. And who was president then? I would kick him too.

re: stacks

Last week was a week. So thankfully, this past weekend was so kind.

I caught up with my dear friend Kai before he takes off for a new job in San Francisco then fell asleep early in my bed while watching Harold and Maude. I ran seven miles in the mountains and felt my lungs and legs alive. I napped on my couch and Danny brought me lunch. Logan caught a lamb and Elizabeth got her skirt chewed by a cow. My dad was dressed like this:



I dug deeper into You Shall Know Our Velocity and remembered that I just love Dave Eggers. I ate Mexican food with friends to celebrate Kim's birthday and then slept and slept some more. Janelle and I took a Sunday morning walk and I felt good about the lesson I taught in Relief Society. We gave my dad a KitchenAid because he loves to kitchen and because we love him a lot. And after playing some dominos at Kristina's house last night I rode my bike around the block a couple of extra times to listen to this twice through.

My cute neighbor Kate introduced me to Bon Iver this past winter and I am so pleased she did because I sometimes create a lot of noise inside my head and his quiet music requires moving all that junk out of the way. There are other songs on the album that have had more play up to now, but this one caught me last week on a bus ride and I've been listening to it over and over ever since.

Thank goodness for so many beautiful things.

UPDATE: well hot damn, looks like Dainon and I are on the same wave length. I just watched it twice in a row and it's amazing.

don't know what you've got

(till it's gone)

little sister

Yesterday was my little sister Elizabeth's birthday, she turned 17. Earlier this week my two Salt Lake brothers and their wives and I went to my mom's house in Kaysville for a birthday dinner to celebrate her birth those nearly 2 decades ago. It seems like usually in the birthday hoopla of a friend or family member I think about how I am glad that specifically that person was born. As I wrote my little card to Elizabeth on Tuesday I mentioned that thought. And as I wrote it, I realized that Elizabeth is the only person on the planet so far who I remember thinking that actually at her birth. I remember going to the hospital when Logan was born, but I was like four so that's about it.

But with Elizabeth I remember everything. I was seven I believe when my parents announced to the family that my mom was pregnant. We were 5 children already; I had Katie and Sterling older than me, both early teenagers who were in very different life stages than I, and Christopher and Logan younger than me. While it's just 18 months between Christopher and me, as little kids he and Logan were much closer because you know, little boys and toy guns and Legos and whatnot. We were sitting at the dinner table and my parents said they had something to tell us. Katie joked that what, mom is pregnant? And both my parents just looked at each other like they were caught and said yes, yes mom is pregnant. Katie insisted they were too old, that she was going to be too old to even know the baby, that we were too poor and I remember a comment about my parents being rabbit-like (which is all so hilarious to talk about now). I don't remember much of a Sterling reaction and the little boys just seemed giggly. I was seven, didn't super have a sibling buddy and loved babies so I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful than getting one of my own. I was sure it was going to be girl, a boy didn't even enter my brain as a possibility. And while the 7 of us in our family were living in a little tiny house and resources were tight and Elizabeth was COMPLETELY unexpected and who knew how it was going to work...I remember sitting at the dinner table and already thinking I couldn't wait for her to come.

And then she came! And she was perfect! And I was so proud of her (and such a teacher's pet) that even though school was out I made my mom take us to Mrs. South's house to show off that little Elizabeth baby I had gotten the first week of summer break. And Elizabeth was seriously, the cutest thing ever. We all fell so hard for that tiny being. My parents were always holding her. The little boys loved to try to make her smile and they called her Bessy from the get-go. She had a power over grown-up brother Sterling to make him coo and cuddle, much to our amazement. Katie just seemed to know how to take care of her and I wanted everyone I knew to see her and think she was as adorable and wonderful as I thought she was. As she grew we loved to watch her learn things as she turned into her own little person. Of course, we loved that as siblings we could make sure the first song she learned the lyrics to was The Joker by Steve Miller Band or that by age six The Beatles were her favorite band because, what is the point of a much younger sibling if you can't make them cooler than the other kids their age?

Elizabeth has always seemed older than her actual years. She has always been such a clever little thing with a brain that usually thinks beyond her age. She has a lot creativity inside her and it manifests itself through sewing projects and collages or doodles on napkins everywhere she eats. Her taste in books and music and movies seems adult and all of my friends enjoy her company just as they enjoy the company of my other, actual adult siblings. But I thought earlier this week as we had all arranged to get to my mom's house on a Tuesday night and there were my little brothers all grown up with wives and one with a baby on the way, about how Elizabeth was turning 17 and not 27. She is a teenager and everyone else is mid-twenties or beyond. I thought about how even though she seems so grown up, she's still our little baby sister because we were excited to give her our presents and see her reaction and cus Logan made her blow out cake candles twice since he was out of the room the first time around. And even though we were five kids for quite a while, we weren't complete until she came around and made us six and I don't think anyone can't imagine life without her being born seventeen years ago. I definitely can't.

why my mom is funny

(just to be clear, I called my sister a buttfor, not my mother. also, lest the internet think she's not a sophisticated lady, no bodily function/body part jokes for Jayne normally)

the future, wouldn't that be nice?

I have been thinking a thing.

There is a funny thing we do as humans which is think about ourselves so much. And why wouldn't we, because we see each other and the world and ourselves through our own eyes and brains, so I suppose it makes sense we spend so much time within our own thoughts. But I wonder, if we're all thinking about ourselves so much of the time and then still manage to occupy thinking space with all the other things there are to think about in life as well as people we care about, then perhaps there isn't much room left to think of ways to intentionally be mean? At least that's what I hope. Because I think in a little world where we find ourselves connected to lots of different people anyway, amplified with THE INTERNET where you can see all your friends doing exciting things (and crafts!), then it's easy to be totally aware of all the fun things it seems everyone but you are doing. But I think that is okay because can anyone do everything all the time? (the answer is no). Plus I think usually we're all so concerned with what we are doing that there isn't much energy left over to exclude. And if there is, well then some kind of an ass hat you turn out to be.

I for one, am not especially clever or witty. I don't have foreign adventures in foreign countries and I do love television. I buy mostly cheap shoes and all the cakes I know how to make come straight out of boxes...so I figure I'm not a particularly interesting or cool person. I think that I laugh a lot and seem friendly enough and really, really love people, so I have managed to make some interesting and clever friends throughout the years. I love my little life because I like being uninteresting and watching John and Kate Plus Eight while drinking a Big Gulp. I get to see my clever friends and my cool family with lots of regularity and I have so much fun because often we're eating food or someone is telling funny jokes and my tummy hurts from laughing. So while sometimes I have seen fun events on the internet or heard through others about fun events and felt a little sad I didn't know about it, never have I thought other people might feel the same way about me sometimes...because you know, mostly boring here.

Which is why I brought up my first point that I think people are busy enough in their own lives cultivating fulfilling relationships to spend any time making sure someone else isn't being liked; mostly people are nice and maybe sometimes forgetful. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can be a total jerk sometimes (ask all of my friends from high school about when they got boyfriends, or ask anyone who has stood in line with me at Cafe Rio), but I'm not trying to be a jerk...and my guess is, neither are you. Right?

shoot from the hip

Sometimes, my job is so much fun.