Every Fear Hides a Wish

I've learned something recently that I want to share with you: I am really good at making lists.  You might say that I'm even a professional list maker.  I'm also a professional stick figure artist, a professional procrastinator, and a professional eater, along with a professional sleeper, although I am not a professional at falling asleep.  I'm just really good at sleeping once I finally fall into that state of relaxation, the falling asleep part is difficult though.


So anyway, I recently made a list of my fears and wanted to blog about them.  There's a quote by David Mamet that says "every fear hides a wish" and I'm attempting to find those wishes that my fears are hiding, but so far I'm getting zilch.  Maybe typing them out in this post will help me find some.


I'm first going to start with my list of irrational fears:


First up is.... wait for it.... HOMELESS PEOPLE!  I'm sorry to whomever this may offend, but I just can't help it.  I understand that lots of people who are homeless have extremely difficult lives and it's not something they can control, but that doesn't change the fact that when I see homeless people on the street I have mini freak outs and have the sudden urge to run as fast as I can in the opposite direction.


NO EDGE!  Alright, this may sound completely ridiculous to some of you, but I'm a little scared that one day I'm going to get sucked into space and die.  It's this stupid fear that stems from the fact that there is no edge to the universe which is a really freaky thought, and then the other fact that the universe is constantly expanding.  My question is: EXPANDING INTO WHAT?!?!  So occasionally I think about this and have to clutch onto the nearest something until the feelings of floating away subside.


I'm pretty sure that almost everyone is at least a little creeped out by bugs and spiders.  I am no exception to this, and I'm also a little more extreme than just creeped out by them, I am genuinely given the heebie-jeebies by anything creepy crawly like that.  Alright, confession time, I'm actually a lot worse then I'm letting on to.  I hate bugs and spiders (mostly spiders) they are just gross and creepy and I can't stand them!  I purposely kill every creepy bug that comes across my path with a zeal and macabre that would make any serial killer proud.


Agyrophobia: the fear of crossing the street.  To those of you wondering, no I don't have agyrophobia, BUT I do have a fear of crosswalk timers.  I refuse to still be in the crosswalk when the time runs out.  It's this weird irrational fear that if I'm still in the road when the timer hits 0 and goes to the red hand I will get sucked into some alternate dimension.  I have no idea where it stems from, or what wish this fear might be hiding.

What is it about clowns that make me want to cry?  Here let me tell you:  It is unnatural to be that happy all of the time, so obviously there has to be some freaky sort of mental instability there and eventually they're just going to snap and start eating your flesh.  Second, what's with the face paint?  Obviously they are trying to hide their identity, sketchy?  I think yes!  Third, red is a very angry and violent color, and it also seems to be every clowns favorite color.  Fourth, they wear clothes that are way to large for them.  That just screams mentally insane!  Five, I may or may not have read a book called Nobody Knows about a clown rapist.  Six, the media has not helped with my coulrophobia in anyway!  And no, I have never watched It before, but if I did it would just make my fear so much worse so it's probably good I've never seen it.
Now here is a quick story about my crippling fear of clowns.  I was at Lagoon with a group of friends one year during Frightmares and we were going through one of the haunted houses.  Then suddenly we wandered into a room with a clown theme.  One of the freaky little painted jerks came up behind me and honked his stupid little clown horn in my ear.  I instantly dropped to the floor, curled up in the fetal position, and began having a major panic attack.  I couldn't get up and eventually my friends had to pick up up and carry me out of the haunted house.  It was an embarrassing moment for me.


Not only am I scared of clowns, but I'm afraid of people in full body costumes when it's not Halloween.  And when I say full body costumes I mean complete with masks.  I don't know what it is but I freak out when I can't see people's faces.  You just never know who it could be under there!


I am also afraid of the dark.  It's not necessarily the dark that I'm afraid of, but the freaky monsters and people that my over-active imagination puts in the dark.  My imagination has only grown with time, and now that my brain is a lot more mature then when I was younger I have even more scary thoughts when I'm in the dark.

Another irrational fear I have is going to the dentist.  Yes, the above picture is of me sobbing uncontrollably while in the dentist office.  I don't know what it is about mouth pain, but it is the worst kind of pain that I have ever experienced, and I hate the dentist for it.  So I'm absolutely terrified of going to the dentist.  The end.


So typing these fears out didn't help me find the hidden inner wishes.  Maybe it doesn't work with irrational fears, just real personal fears.  Like my biggest fear that I'm going to be infertile when it comes time for me to start a family.  And the wish that hides behind that fear is my desire to be a mom one day.  Then my fear of being alone hides my wish to be loved by someone important to me.  My fear of failing hides my wish to be successful.  My fear of trusting people hides my wish to have someone that I can confide in... Yeah, I think that proves it.  The quote "every fear hides a wish" only works with personal fears, not irrational fears, which makes sense now that I think about the word irrational that comes before the word fear in the phrase irrational fears... Wow, hello brain.  I missed you!


So there's my list of fears.  Now that I have my brain back to the functioning mode instead of the off mode I think it is a good time for me to end my post before I permanently get stuck in the not thinking part of my brain.

Things I Want To Re-create!

I've been doing way good at this whole blogging thing lately.  It's amazing!  Usually I post a couple things a month, but recently I've been doing it almost daily.  I wonder if it just has to do with the fact that I'm bored... Possibly.


Anyway I was scrolling through pinterest today and saw a picture that I wanted to re-create so badly! So I've decided to make a list of things that I want to re-create.


First up is the picture I saw on pinterest:

Dear future man, this will be happening!  I hope you're up for it.


And now for the rest of my list:

I want to recreate this V-day photo complete with the outfits and people in the background.

Lately I've had a slight obsession with bubble gum (it's just so addictive!), so obviously I want to recreate this picture for one of my engagement photos.

How cute is this?  Someday I will dance in the rain with a boy.

I know what you must be thinking, this Spiderman kiss is so overdone.  But it's not this kissing pose that I want to do, I just want to kiss Spiderman!  (Alright fine, because Spiderman isn't real I'll settle for an attractive man in a Spidey costume as long as he is upside down.)

One day I will eat spaghetti like this with someone (and hopefully that someone is a boy that I like very much.)

Not only do I want to dance in the rain, but I want to dance in the middle of the street at night as well!

I want to take a real people photo like this!

Pushing Daisies is one of my most absolute favorite television shows of all time!  For those of you who have never watched it, these two characters above (Ned, The Pie Maker and Chuck, his childhood love) cannot touch or else she will die forever.  It's a really tragic thing!  So basically when they kiss through plastic wrap I find it the most adorable thing ever!

For those of you who haven't seen Pee-wee's Big Adventure this picture will make no sense to you.  But for those of you who have you will know that this is when Pee-wee and Simone watch the sunset in a fake dinosaurs mouth.  One day I will visit this dinosaur in Cabazone, California and I will watch the sunrise while inside it's mouth.

The Little Rascals is one of my all time favorite movies!  At some point in time I want to re-create this exact picture complete with the signature Alfalfa hair, the umbrella, outfits, and boat in the water.

In one of my all time favorite love stories, Benny and Joon, Johnny Depp's character makes grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron.  I want to do this so bad!

Due to the awesomeness that is Xanadu: The Musical I desperately want to go on a roller skating date!

For as long as I can remember I've always wanted to share a milkshake with the boy I love at some old timey burger joint.

I love So You Think You Can Dance and Melanie and Marko were one of my absolute favorite couples!  This dance is amazing, and I want a guy to slide to me like this right before he kisses me.  One day it will happen... maybe.


And that is it for my re-creation list.  So far at least.  I'm sure that this list will only get longer over time so maybe I'll have to post another one of these eventually.  Hopefully if I ever do post my re-creation list again I've at least crossed off some of the ones that are already on here.

Memories

My pineapple rant made me very hungry for pineapple so I bought one!


Anyway, on to my actual topic: I apologize in advanced to anyone I embarrass or offend in this post, I'm not trying to do it, I'm simply going to be talking about some of my most favorite and least favorite memories in my life so far.


First I'm going to start with all my favorite memories...


2nd Grade Love Story:  when I was in 2nd grade I had a good friend named Tanner and we were in love.  Well as in love as two 2nd graders could be.  One day in class we were getting ready to go to our story circle where our teacher would read us a book.  Then I noticed a bunch of the kids surrounding Tanner looking at a picture he colored.  So I obviously was curious and this is roughly what I saw...

Unfortunately, in my 2nd grade mind I didn't find this romantic at all.  I was so embarrassed!  Even to the point of tears.  So I cried, and cried, and cried.  Sadly, I didn't stop.  I cried so much that our teacher took me to the office where my mom was called to come pick me up.  The reason this is one of my favorite memories is because it's so funny now.  At the time of the incident it wasn't funny, but now it just cracks me up!


Thanksgivings:  my absolute favorite holiday of all time is Thanksgiving.  Yes, it may be weird to those of you who believe that the holidays where you receive presents are the best holidays, but I'd rather spend time with my family any day!  Thanksgivings for the Dayton family is intense.  Our whole extended family gets together and we pig out along with a bunch of other fun stuff.  My extended family on my Dad's side can be a little crazy sometimes, so much that we've scared off potential fiance's before.  But in my eyes that's a good thing!  Natural selection and all that, you know?  Only the strongest can be taken into our family (so naturally I am terrified to ever bring guys I date to our family get togethers.)  
My most favorite memory from our many family Thanksgivings actually happens to be from last Thanksgiving in California.  We were staying at my Aunt and Uncles house and all the kids were spread out downstairs on air mattresses.  In the middle of the night my brother Taylor, and cousins Sydnie, and Landon decided to play a joke of Blake who had fallen asleep earlier.  So we picked up her mattress with her still on it and carried it into the kitchen.  Luckily she's a very heavy sleeper.  We did think about carrying her outside, but then we realized that she could be eaten by a wild dog so we didn't.  Instead we just put food all around her bed and left her in the kitchen.  There were lots of other good moments during that Thanksgiving.  Including an awesome football game, watching my Grandparents play Just Dance on the Kinnect, eating loads of food, and going to Six Flags!


The Golf Cart Incident:  now this memory is one of my most favorite memories from High School simply because I find it so hilarious!  One day I was hanging out with my best friends Garrett, Justen, Seku, Caleb, and Brandon.  We were at Caleb's farm and we were playing around with his family's golf cart.  And for those of you who don't know, golf carts are really fast and powerful.  Anyway I was standing near a tree with Justen and Garrett while Seku and Caleb were in the golf cart with Brandon who was driving.  Now being the typical boys they are they were being extremely unsafe.  Taking really sharp turns, pretending to run over us but turning at the last second, and so on.  Then Caleb got an ingenious idea and decided to jump out of the moving cart, so he did just that.  And then Seku decided to follow his lead.  But the most genius move came from the driver Brandon.  He turned the golf cart so it was heading towards Garrett, Justen, and I and then he proceeded to jump out of the golf cart as well.
So now we had a very fastly moving golf cart headed right towards us, so what did we instinctively do?  We moved out of the way.  Garrett and Justen moved to the right and I moved off to the left, and IF the golf cart had kept going straight it would've gone right between us.  But alas the cart did not want to go straight, instead it veered and hit me instead.  I was smashed by the out of control golf cart and rolled up onto the hood.  I should also mention that this golf cart was headed directly towards the giant tree that was behind me.  Luckily I managed to roll off the side of the cart right before I was smashed between the tree trunk and the golf cart.
Now some of you may be wondering why this very painful experience is one of my favorites and here is the reason; as soon as I hit the ground chaos broke out.  Brandon was apologizing over and over while Garrett was screaming at him.  Caleb was trying to make sure I was alright at the same time he was trying to make sure the golf cart and tree didn't inflict too much damage upon one another.  Justen rushed over to me and began asking over and over if I needed to go to the hospital.  And Seku stood shocked off to one side not knowing what to do with himself.  During this whole entire time I was simply laughing my head off rolling around on the ground.  Which didn't help the fact that they all thought I had brain damage.  The rest of the night they kept telling me not to fall asleep and asking me random questions to make sure I wasn't having memory loss.  Which was a very nice gesture since I had hit my head extremely hard against the golf cart.  The next day I woke up with so many cuts and bruises.  I think those were some of the best battle wounds I have ever had.


Lunchable Date:  in High School I was dating a kid named Garrett.  One afternoon he asked if I would like to go on a date with him so I agreed.  It wasn't planned and when he picked me up I had no idea what we were going to do.  We then drove to Smiths and bought Lunchables and Arizona's which we took up to our favorite spot in the mountains.  We then climbed on top of his Geo and had a picnic and talked.  That date was the best date I've ever been on.


The Man Cave:  this is another good memory from High School.  My friend Brandon had a crawl space under his house that we tricked out.  We took apart some small sofa's and reassembled them down there and stuffed a couple bean bags and some chairs in that little room.  We hooked up a mini television and covered up the mold covered walls with old blankets and clothes.  We then stocked it with soda and put a stolen Davis Applied Technology College sign in it.  We called it the Man Cave, which seemed only fair since I was the only girl in that entire group of friends and they all just thought of me as one of the guys.  We spent so much time down there playing Halo, or having 24 or The Office marathons.  Sometimes I still wonder if that mold was toxic because we would all be so loopy after spending over 18 hours down there after each marathon weekend.  


My Goodbye:  the day before I was supposed to leave for college my good friend Seku got baptized.  It was such an emotional day for all of us!  His best friend Justen performed the baptism and then we all hung out for the rest of that day.  Most of that day I spent in tears.  I was so sad that I was going to be leaving all of my great High School friends to go off to SUU.  We played our very last game of tag that night and then I said goodbye to everyone.  I cried and hugged all of them goodbye and surprisingly none of them made fun of me for crying.  It was a really sad night, but I'm glad I got to have that last good night with them before our group broke apart to all the different places we are in now.


Stories Shared in Juni:  during my first year of college I made a really good friend named Gratten, who I eventually started to date.  But one night before we ever starting dating each other we stayed up really late talking in my hall in Juniper.  We talked for hours that night about so many different things.  We told funny stories about all our past relationships (and when I say all our past relationships I mean my ONLY past relationship and his 7 or 8 past relationships.)  We told stories about our families, our friends, and our pasts.  We talked about what we wanted to do in the future.  We talked for so long and got to know each other so well.  It was such a great night, and one of my many cherished memories from Juniper!


The Night of the Stolen Trees:  one night in Juniper McKenna, Gratten, Nick, and I decided to pull an all nighter.  And that night turned out to be a pretty epic night!  We ended up stealing all the fake trees that were placed throughout Juniper and we stored them in McKenna's room.  We turned the room into a forest and then watched a movie in there.  Later that night once most everyone was already asleep we decided to go put all of the trees in front of one of our R.A's doors.  So we carried each tree and placed them all in front of Jayson's door on the C200 hall.  Unfortunately after that Nick went to sleep so we lost one of our buddies, but that didn't stop us!  McKenna, Gratten, and I then took a walk to Maverick where we bought ice cream and caffeine to keep us awake.  Then when we got back to Juni we filmed a stop motion video and attempted to keep ourselves awake by telling stories in McKenna's room.  By then it was about 6 in the morning, which is when we finally gave up and all passed out.  That was another really good night in Juniper!


Night Walk:  Towards the end of last Semester I made a really good friend.  That friend's name is Josh.  One night after we had been hanging out with a bunch of theatre people playing Body Body Body we ended up going on a walk and talking.  Without even realizing it we walked around campus and talked until about 5 in the morning.  We actually had some very meaningful conversations interspersed with randomness.  It was a great night and I'm really glad that I made a good friend who I could talk to about important things.


The Games:  The last memory I have to share with you happened at the end of this last semester. I was studying for my History Final and was stressing out pretty bad when I got this phone call from Maddie.  She asked what I was doing and then told me to come downstairs, so I did.  That is when I found this note taped to the glass door of my building...

We had gone to see The Hunger Games together earlier that semester and we both loved the books.  So obviously I was excited.  I ran back upstairs to procure some good shoes and then ran back downstairs to find the cornucopia.  What I found was a bucket filled with water that contained a bunch of water balloons and three water guns.  I picked up the orange one because it is my favorite color and I grabbed a couple water balloons and then I had the best water fight ever with one of my best friends!  Such a good study break.  Thanks Maddie!


I was going to talk about all my least favorite memories in this blog post as well, but I think this post is already getting pretty lengthy.  So I'm going to end it here and save my sadder memories for a different time.

My Room

I'm pretty sure I have insomnia, either that or I just don't enjoy sleep.  I can't be too sure which one it is.  All I know is that I sometimes lay in bed for hours trying to fall asleep but simply cannot accomplish that one thing.  So here I am.


I wasn't entirely sure what to write, so I've decided to introduce you to my room.  First and foremost my room is painted yellow.  Second it's not bright electric yellow, just a nice happy light yellow.  First I will introduce you to all the normal things in my room.  Like my dresser, for instance.  I have a black dresser with a mirror attached to it and a matching black bedside stand.  I also have a white bookshelf that holds all my books that I didn't take to college, and then under my bed I have a large box full of the books that I took to college but can't put back on my bookshelf because there is literally no room.  As you can probably imagine, I love books.


Some other normal things would include a closet full of clothes, shoes, and lots of empty hangers.  A clock, pictures, a bed...


But now comes the fun part!  I'm going to tell you about the stuff that makes my room special to me. On top of my bookshelf there are a lot of items that I've gathered over the years.  I have my softball twos:  two trophies, two medals, and two game balls (one is even from the championship game that I broke my leg during.)  Then I have a bottle full of water with a cork in it, and next to that is a small container of the same water with the word Talented written on it.  Both of these are from my High School Production class.  Along with those I have a miniature tea set that my grandma bought me.  She's given me many mini tea sets over the years, lots of them are themed for holidays like Christmas, Halloween, and Easter, but this specific one that I have displayed is covered with Fairies.  I'm not particularly fond of fairies or anything, but something about this mini tea set is so beautiful that I keep it on my bookshelf instead of in a box with the others.  Then there is my chime box (yes, chime box, not music box.)  It is a medium sized box that contains three metal circular disks suspended on three bars with a multitude of small metal balls inside.  These metal balls stick to the roof of the box when you tip it upside down and then when you tip it right side up again they slowly fall onto the circular disks making a very lovely chiming sound.  There are also some random glass bottles on top of my shelf as well.  I'm not sure why, they just take up space and they're not really important to me in any way.  They've just managed to find there way up there over the years and I've never removed them.


Now onto my dresser:  first I have a bunch of dries roses in a vase.  Two yellow roses are from my sophomore year of High School, given to me on valentines day by a kid named Matthew.  Two red roses are from my Senior year of High School, given to me again on valentines day, but this time by Garrett.  Two different red roses were gifts from directors after two different shows in college.  And the last two pink roses were sent in a flower arrangement by my father when I was down at school with the purpose to life my spirits after a tough week.  Next there is my file box.  It contains a ton of theatre papers from monologues to entire shows.  It also has a bunch of random things like key chains and lighters in the top drawer as well.  I'm not really sure why that stuff is in there, but it is.


Next to my dresser hangs my hat collection.  Yes, I have a hat collection.  And those hats range from a cowboy hat to baseball caps, a multicolored patch fedora to a blue crocheted baret, a wide brim sun hat to a couple of beanies plus a couple more.  My hats are not the only things hanging on my wall.  I also have an inspirational quote that says "Shoot for the moon!  Even if you miss... you'll land among the stars."  Then I have a beautiful black and white picture of Jesus Christ surrounded by children that was given to me by my mom after I told her I wanted a picture of Jesus smiling because I didn't like all the other pictures where he's always so stoic.  Then on the opposite wall I have a red felt canvas with a painting of a ship on it.  I found this particular art piece at Savers and just couldn't pass it up.

As you can clearly see it is a magnificent ship that deserves to be on my wall!

I also have a mask from my Maui trip hanging on my wall, along with a painting of my name done in animals and flowers, and a picture by James Christensen entitled 'A Place of Her Own' which I am very fond of.

My room not only holds a collection of hats, but it holds a very important collection of stuffed animals.  I love stuffed animals!  My most favorite of all time is Simba though (I actually have two stuffed Simba's but the old worn out one is by far my most favorite.)  I also have a sock monkey named Dexter, an elephant named Monroe, a Tiger named Kenneth, a bear named Theo, a duck named Lawrence, and a small baby doll in a giraffe outfit named Genoveve.  And technically, yes, the baby doll isn't a stuffed animal but she's still important to me!


Clothes and shoes are not the only things that inhabit my closet.  I also have a few very important things in there as well.  One of them is a stage weight that I may, or may not have, stolen from somewhere... let's not get into that though.  I also have a collection of play bills from all the many shows I've been to over the years.  Then I have my ukulele in there along with a couple purses that I never use.  And then there is my very important Betty Boop lunch box which holds my very important stuff that cannot be disclosed in this blog post.


I also have an entire dresser drawer that contains a bunch of letters, cards, and notes that I've received over the years.  And despite what you may think most of them are just birthday cards, not secret love notes.  Although I do have a couple of those... along with some poems that were written for me.  One that is even very good as well, and very special to me.  And as much to your dismay I am not going to share who wrote that poem or what it said, sorry.


There is also a keyboard in my room.  Which rocks!


And that is my room.

Dear Individuals

As usual I was scrolling through facebook trying to figure out what to write, when I realized that there are a lot of people that I would like to say something to.  So I decided to scroll through my friends and say something to you guys in this post.  I would have actually posted it on your facebook page, but this way was just so much easier, and I also am curious to see how many of you will actually read this.

To begin I am going to start with my Mom (because I know you will read this):  I love you!  Thank you for always being supportive and understanding.  You have helped me through so much in my life and I'm so happy that you are my mother.  I love you to the moon and back and a million red M&M's.


Dad:  I don't know if you actually read my blog, or just the posts that mom suggests to you, but I know she's going to have you read this.  I love you!  Thank you for putting up with my boy craziness, I know you don't particularly enjoy hearing about my love life but thanks for not at least covering your ears and running away every time I do talk about it.  You're the best Daddy in the world, and one day I'm going to get you a mug that says it!


McKenna:  I miss you!  My room is desperately lonely without someone to talk to before I fall asleep at night.  I don't really have anything else to say except "I just get really patriotic at night.  Oh say can you see..."


Maddie and Carly:  We are pretty much the three theatre amigos and I require us to have more late nights talks in the mountains next year!


Seku, Justen, Caleb, McKay, Brandon, Matt, and Garrett:  High school was great because of you guys.  I'm so proud of all of you for being on missions right now.  I love you all and miss you so much! (Cecily and Brooke this all applies to you two as well, except for the mission part)


Emalee: Best counterpart ever!


My other mothers (Leslie, Deanne, Kim, Karen, and Stephanie):  Thank you for all being such good examples for me!  


Brie, Jane, Sarah, Natalie, Selena, and Shelly:  All of you are super awesome and I really hope I get to know you guys better next year.


Brogan:  You are so entertaining, why did we never hang out?


Jessica:  I'm sorry we never kept in touch after High School like we said we would.  I hope USU is treating you well!


Napsugar:  I admire your confidence in yourself, I wish we both didn't have crazy schedules so that we could have hung out more.


Naomi:  Thank you for understanding!  I miss you.


Mitch, Davis, and Micaela:  You guys are the best fake cousins anyone could ever ask for!


Tatem, MacKenzie, Kaitlin, and Elisa:  I want to thank all three of you for being so amazing and kind.  Thanks for all the support and help you've given me!


Marco:  Your teeth really are fantastic, and I apologize if my saying that made you uncomfortable.  I just have this weird thing about teeth...


Jessica/Rosalind:  I am so excited to work with you!


Emma:  I'm so sorry for everything that happened between us, but I'm happy that in the end we worked it all out.  I admire you very much and I hope that you have an absolutely wonderful time at the U.


Karina:  Remember when you put that note in my backpack?  I truly needed a boost that day and you did exactly that.  Thank you so much for being amazing, and for making me laugh!


Frank:  I am officially admitting that your coloring was a lot better than mine.  You clearly won the competition, I was just too prideful to say so.


Tiffani:  I'm so happy that you made Productions!  I can't wait to come see you in The Phantom next year!


Adam:  Congrats on Jamaica!


Tony:  I am personally requesting that we watch Peter Pan together when we get back to school; Yea or Nay?


Nathaniel:  Nigel, our killer rubber duck, misses you.  Just thought you should know.


Samantha:  After our callback for Beth I gave up on wanting the part.  I knew you would get it because your voice is simply beautiful, and I honestly wanted you to get it over myself!  I'm so happy we both made it into the BFA and I really hope we get to know each other better next year!


Redge:  I'm so happy I know you and that you don't hate me.  At least I think you don't hate me, I could be wrong.


Durf Turf:  I bet you won't read this because you don't seem the type to take time out of your day to read someone else's thoughts on a blog, but all I wanted to say is that our Elementary School trip was awesome!


Mandy, Rachel, Sharlie, Sharlene, Abby, Molly, McKenzie, Kaylee, and Kiery:  I miss you girlies and I request a lunch date.


Nic:  Thank you!


Zac:  I don't think you understand how much you've helped me these past two years, but I want to thank you for all that you've done!


Floor buddies (you know who you are):  Thanks for an awesome year!


Andra and Kristin:  Thank you for loving the performing arts as much as you do and thank you for teaching me that love as well!


Ethan:  I'm sorry.


Brian:  I can't believe you won't be at SUU next year, it makes me unbelievably sad!  I will miss you dearly!


Kasey and Brock:  I can't believe that my two best friends from elementary are on missions.  I'm so proud of you both!


Katie:  I'm going to miss my across the street little sister!


My dear little brother Taylor:  You're not allowed to grow up anymore!  You can go to college, but that is it!  After that you are required to stay the same age forever because I don't think I can handle not seeing you for two whole years.  I miss you when I'm at school and I love you!


Jesse:  It would be strange if you were reading my blog, don't get me wrong I'd be honored!  But I just think you probably have a lot better things to do then reading a random fan's blog.  Now what I have to say; I love your music.  That is all.


Brandon:  Please keep being adorable, you and Emalee make rehearsal so much fun!


Jeannette and Stephanie:  You two crack me up!


And that is pretty much everything I have to say.  I really hope at least some of you read this.

The Broken Place

I've decided to accept my mom's challenge and write about something meaningful instead of something random like pineapples.  So I've decided to write about the broken place of my life.


The hardest broken place in my life happened in High School (it happened to be my second broken place, the first being when I broke my leg and couldn't do anything for an entire summer), and as you probably guessed it dealt with a boy (because honestly what High School heartache doesn't involve a boy.)  But this High School story doesn't involve a tragic break-up or a horrible cheating story, it's about death.


In High School I was dating a kid whom my parents didn't approve of, but being the rebellious teen that I was I continued dating him anyway.  We dated for two and a half years and in those two and a half years I can honestly say that I loved him.  I still love him actually, just not in the same way.  We spent crucial developmental years of our lives together and I am a different person because of it.  In our senior year of High School my boyfriends Dad passed away from a heart attack early one Sunday morning.  I wasn't particularly close to his Dad or the rest of his family, but his parents had both expressed to me how they were grateful that I was dating their son.  He was a troubled kid and according to his parents they could see that I made him happy and changed him in ways they didn't think possible.  So I felt a sort of bond with his family because of the way his parents treated me.  When I heard the news of the death I was heart broken.  


Their family struggled enough as it was and I was completely shocked at the unfairness of it all.  His mother had serious medical problems and they weren't financially where they would have liked to be.  His father had heart problems before, but they were never serious.  Then all of a sudden he had a major heart attack and never woke up.  The death was unexpected and shocking.  The family was torn apart.  I went over to my boyfriends house as soon as they all got back from the hospital.  When I pulled up to the house he was sitting on his front porch alone.  He walked to the car as I got out and walked straight into my arms.  We hugged for a very long time all the while he was sobbing.  He was not the kind of kid to cry, ever!  And I cried right along with him because I ached to know that he was feeling a kind of hurt that I couldn't do anything about.


I spent all my free time with my boyfriend and his family for the next couple of weeks.  Mostly we sat around their living room planning the funeral and trying to talk about anything else but what we were all thinking about.  My boyfriend and I learned how to solve a rubik's cube to keep our minds off of the horrible reality we were living in, and spent hours mindlessly handing our one cube back and forth between each other.  Then the funeral came.  


I had never been to a funeral before for someone I had personally known, and I wasn't sure of what to expect.  My boyfriends mom ended up asking me to go with the family early and take place in the private family gathering before the actual ceremony.  I was a little taken back that they wanted me to be there during that time, but his mother assured me that she wanted me there and the rest of the family did as well.  At first I felt intrusive when I got there but immediately after they began my boyfriend grabbed onto my hand and didn't let go until it was over.  I realized that he needed me there.  He wasn't close with any of his family members.  He was the youngest and didn't like being seen as weak, and I knew he hated relying on anyone in his family so in that moment he wanted me there to be his lifeline.


After the family viewing I became very useful as a babysitter.  My boyfriends older brother and his wife had a little boy named Owen and he was a very persistent child.  As everyone was trying to prepare for the funeral Owen kept screaming and wailing and trying to go outside.  He loved being outdoors and simply didn't want to stay inside anymore so I offered to take him for a walk around the parking lot while they did what they needed to do.  Owen and I walked around the parking lot for a good half hour going from car to car inspecting the tires.  For a little kid he already had a fascination with cars.  After a while my boyfriend came out to join us.  We each took one of Owen's little hands and swung him around the parking lot.  It was so refreshing to see this little boy so happy outside.  My boyfriend and I dreaded the moment when we would have to join everyone else inside.  We mostly stayed quite while we were walking with Owen, and the only sound came from the little boys loud untranslatable garble.  Then it was time for the funeral.


Everyone in the immediate family except for my boyfriends mother had a part in the ceremony so they were all up on the stand and she was going to be sitting with cousins and siblings.  She asked if I would sit next to her and that is what I did.  During the funeral she took my hand and held onto it the entire time.  We watched as my boyfriend got up and read as much of the obituary as he could until he couldn't continue from sobbing and had to motion for his sister to read the rest.  Then his sister continued with a talk, then his two older brothers spoke as well.  The whole entire time she kept a tight hold on my hand with silent tears streaming down her face, and in that moment I became another persons lifeline.


The first few months after that dreadful Sunday was easily the hardest time of my life.  There were night when I would just cry myself to sleep, I cried in class, at work, and then there were days when me and my boyfriend would simply cry together at lunch, or walk aimlessly around our neighborhoods trying desperately to talk about anything that didn't make us think of how miserable we both were.  The worst was when things finally started going back to normal something would bring it up again and we'd begin the grieving all over.  We grew so close during that time.  Grieving together can either drive people apart or pull them closer together, and this ordeal made us inseparable.


I still ache for the tragedy that their family had to go through.  I wished so much that I could fix it in some way, and I really hope that I at least eased some of the pain throughout the process.  I still love and care for that family, and I always will.  

Nobody Reads My Blog

Today as I was aimlessly scrolling through facebook and I noticed that a lot of people have started posting links to their blog posts, and it made me realize something.  Nobody actually reads my blog, mostly I just write on here for my sake.  It's usually either for two reasons; One: because I actually have something to write about that's important to me, or Two: because I'm extremely bored and have nothing else to do (usually it's the later.)

This post falls under the category of "I'm not entirely sure..."

Mostly because this post isn't necessarily important for any reason, but I'm also not just writing out of boredom.  I'm writing from a realization: and that realization is that since nobody reads my posts I can either start promoting them on facebook, or I can write secret posts that no one will ever read except for me and the few people who stumble onto this blog.  And frankly I like the later.  (maybe... just maybe I'll even put this on facebook as well so then everybody can be included in this secret.  Because as Mr. Bean always says: secwets, secwets awe no fun, unless thew shawd with evwyone!  Or was it Bruce Lee that said that... Oh no wait!  That was that weird kid in elementary school who talked funny that always got beat up on the playground.)

Anyway...

So for secret post numero uno I will be discussing (pause for dramatic effect)...

PINEAPPLES!

Yes, you heard me correctly, Pineapples.  One of the most delicious fruits in the entire universe.  I feel as if the pineapple is the most unappreciated fruit of all the fruits.  My reasons are as follows: obviously the fruit gods got seriously lazy with their naming when they stumbled across the pineapple.  I mean come on!  What kind of a name is 'pineapple?'  They took an already existing name of a fruit i.e. the apple, and then just put the word pine in front of it.  My question is why pine?  There are plenty of other better words they could have put in front of apple e.g. oxygen (we would die without it), wheel (best invention ever), bread (it makes you fat), Chuck Norris (no explanation needed), monkeys (everybody loves them), gas (tehehe), nacho (crunchy salty goodness covered in delectably melted cheese), pillow (the name alone makes me feel relaxed), fries (deep fried potato strips), fire (I'm not a pyro), lying (I'm also not a compulsive liar), beach (the sand and surf and Sasquatches just make for the perfect combination), McDonald's (I'm loving it), bubble wrap (as with Chuck Norris; no explanation needed), duck (... duck, goose...), Play-Doh (definition of nostalgia), bacon (again, no explanation needed), pizza (it's actually called petite-le-za in Italy), tongue (honestly I just like the way it's spelled), pterodactyl (huge fan of the silent t in this word, it's actually pronounced pear-o-das-tile), love (because if it was named the loveapple then it wouldn't be as under appreciated as it is now), pokemon (PIKACHU!!!), chocolate (I repeat: chocolate), Canada (BAHAHAHAHA), or even relief (this is by far the best feeling in the world!  When you royally screw up and you fret over it for hours upon hours and then suddenly and miraculously, as if the true diviner himself looked down upon you and smiled his perfect, white, straight smile then wiggled his ears to make all your problems disappear, you get a phone call, or a textual message, or some sign that everything is going to be alright, now that is the best feeling you will ever feel.

Which makes me think about urination.  Peeing is one of my most absolute favorite things to do.  It's simple, and easy, and relieving.  I enjoy simple and mindless things, and urinating comes absolutely naturally to me.  I understand that for some people it's difficult to learn the art of peeing, I hear about all these different techniques of potty training and what-not, but I have been a professional urinator since birth.  I never needed any training to learn to pee, I just came by it naturally.  I'm gifted like that.  Anyway, as I was saying, I love peeing.  It provides relief and a sense of accomplishment.

And this is becoming a very long parenthetical tangent, so I'm ending it now so we can get back to pineapples.)

Not only was the pineapple cursed with a horrid name, it is also very hard to prepare.  Actually it's quite simple really, but comparitvely it's not.  If a lazy teenager was given the choice between an apple, banana, orange, bunch of grapes, a kiwi, pear, mango, or a pineapple what do you think they would choose?  The correct answer is not the pineapple.  The lazy teen would choose anything BUT the pineapple because he/she is a lazy teenager and the pineapple cannot simply be bitten directly into or easily peeled.  I mean you could try biting into it but that would be an awful experience, and trust me peeling a pineapple is a difficult task.  Therefore it is not chosen to be eaten as often as other fruits.

The other reason that the pineapple isn't eaten enough is because it was given a strange exterior.  This strange exterior sometimes pokes peoples hands in a very uncomfortable way when they try to pick a pineapple up.  This uncomfortable poking can cause aggravation in a potential eater and can cause them to decide not to eat the pineapple because it hurt them and everybody knows you should not partake in something that hurts you (this is a false statement because everybody does not know that, or at least I don't, not fully at least.  I generally partake in things that hurt me.  It's because I am cursed with a big heart that just can't help but love men, and men hurt!  They hurt your heart and then they leave, and then another man comes along claiming he can fix it, but we all know that men are horrible at fixing anything and they just make it worse and hurt your heart even more.  And now this parenthetical tangent is getting to personal so I'm ending it.)  

These are the reasons that I feel the pineapple is being deeply unappreciated for.  It's not the pineapple's fault that it has a bad name, and it's not the pineapples fault that it has an odd exterior, and it's not the pineapple's fault that all the other fruits are simply easier then the pineapple, but there is something very important here!  And it may even be almost like a moral lesson that can be applied to humans (or just me,) and this lesson is that the pineapple is delicious!  Once you finally get to the sweet, yellow, juicy insides of the pineapple it is one of the most tasty fruits of all the fruits.  It's what's on the inside that counts.

And that is all I have to say on the matter of pineapples.