Sarah's musings from way out West

Bear with me

2011-03-17T22:16:00.003-06:00

I know, I know ...

I said it was "the end," and technically, it was. Is. Whatever.

I'm going through the posts on this site and have decided to turn it into a "best of" site and to take down some of the more rambling, petty, dumb stuff.

If you want to know what I'm up to now, go to www.leavingthe307.blogspot.com or agrandjourney.blogspot.com (this one's a little dry - just a log of my walking/running this year, in response to a thousand-mile challenge). The adventures are continuing, though not all of them are quite so adventurous ...

Thanks for keeping up with me - I'm flattered that you care about what's rattling around in my crazy head!

Sarah

The end

2010-09-13T22:19:00.000-06:00

All good - and bad - things must come to an end, and such is the case with this blog.

I'm moving, and so is my rambling - to www.leavingthe307.blogspot.com.

Cheers.

2010-09-13T13:05:00.001-06:00

I need a venti attitude adjustment with an extra shot of happy. And some Advil sprinkled on top, please ...

2010-09-10T16:28:00.001-06:00

The accordian player down the street is playing the theme music from 'Amelie' ...

What pisses me off

2010-09-09T21:47:00.005-06:00

You can burn an American flag, and that's OK. That's your freedom of speech on flaming, moronic display there.

You can dunk a cross in a jar of urine, and that's OK. That's art, and it's your freedom of artistic expression.

You can rip a Bible to shreds in front of an audience, and that's OK. Again, your freedom of speech, and who cares if you offend a few million narrow-minded Christians.

But you can't burn a Quran. You can't even threaten to do it. Think of all the people you'd offend.

I wouldn't burn anything in protest - a bra, a flag, a book of any kind.

And I'm not OK with willfully endangering American troops.

But a person is only responsible for their own actions - not for the reactions of others, whether across the street or around the world.

And if you're going to defend people's freedoms of religion, speech and expression, you'd better be across the effing board with it.

Otherwise, you're simply a hypocrite. A filthy, lying hypocrite.

'Anne' as a mirror ...

2010-09-08T23:59:00.001-06:00

I'm near the end of "Anne of Green Gables" (the book) a year after Amber, Rachel and I made the PEI pilgrimage, a year after we listened to the book on CD up through Maine and New Brunswick, over the Confederation Bridge and on into Charlottetown. I dozed a lot during that mostly-middle-of-the-night trek, so I missed a lot of the story (again).

I read it as a kid; I read it again in college. But somehow, so much of the profundity slipped away. I've found that common with a lot of books I loved (or ought to have loved) as an adolescent: They may have been amusing then, but they actually mean something now. How odd.

Anyway. Where I am: Anne regrets not forgiving Gilbert (or telling him she had forgiven him), and her regret is haunting her through her term at Queen's Academy.

I can't say I actually regret not re-establishing contact, but there's somthing — or several somethings — nagging at me. I just can't put my finger on it. I had a dream last night: We were, at the very least, friends who were glad to see each other and to catch each other up on the goings-on in our lives.

Some days, I wish it could be like that. Other days ... Well. Other days, I'm moving away, and I tell myself that beyond the moment when I shut the door on the moving van and head outside the city limits for the last time, it just won't matter anymore.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But I'll be wrong hundreds of miles away. So you see — it really won't matter.

What I'll miss

2010-09-07T20:51:00.006-06:00

♦ The scent of sagebrush in the air.

♦ The many, many clear nights when I could step out to the park a few blocks away and marvel at a star-strewn velevet-black sky.

♦ Amanda at The Alibi and the fact that she would hand-squeeze lemons for our Saturday night vodka sours. Bless her.

♦ The fact that it was 99 percent safe to run outside late at night, and that the 1 percent of danger came not from rapists and murderers, but from porcupines and foxes.

♦ The sight of the Snowies.

♦ The four-hour drive home.

♦ Erin, Robert, Joe, Josh, Justin, Sholty, Angela, Christa, Rachel, Cindy, the crew at SREFC and most of the Boomerang staff.

♦ My huge, huge, HUGE closet in my rather spacious apartment. And my kitchen table/storage surface/filing space.

♦ My sweet next-door neighbors and their kids.

♦ Late-night chats, sandwiches, coffee, etc. with other crazy Laramie insomniacs at their offices, in the park, at their homes ...

♦ Night Herron Books, Nu2U, Altitude, Coal Creek, Jimmy John's (they don't have one where I'm going ... sad), Fat Burrito, the Front Street Tavern, the martinis at Tommy Jack's, the cherry chicken salad sandwich at Jeffrey's, the Thai Pie and the spinach turkey cranberry salad at Grand Avenue Pizza ...

There are a lot of things I WON'T miss. At all. But it might be considered ungracious to list any of them here.

I'll just say that there still haven't been any regrets over my decision to leave, that I'm super-excited about where I'm going, what I'll be doing, what I'll be near and the life I hope I'll have after I've left Wyoming. It's time. It's definitely time.

(expanded ♦ edited)

2010-09-05T17:57:00.002-06:00

Going through planners/journals from 2006-2008. Three books of joy, anger, celebration, sorrow, anxiety, gratitude & toughening up ...

Examples: Dad's heart attack, brother's trip to the ER after his dog bit him and infected his tendon, freezing cold camping trip with a best bud, engagements, weddings, anniversary parties, the beginnings of relationships, the endings of relationships, relationships that went on far longer and more painfully than they should have, mono, fainting, vacations, tornadoes ... Three years can hold a lot of life.

Awkward moment du jour

2010-09-02T16:24:00.004-06:00

I raided the corrugated cardboard recyling bin at Wal-Mart last night, because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to pay for moving boxes if I can get away with repurposing (free) boxes that are bound for Box Heaven anyway.

Today, as I was getting one ready to fill with stuff, I looked at the label on it. It was addressed to a local vet clinic.

From a pet crematory.

I now have no idea what to put in that box.

In related news, if you're in Gillette or the surrounding area on Sept. 14, check this out. Hope I get to see everyone before I leave!

For Laramie folk, here you go.

Name that perfume

2010-09-01T15:48:00.002-06:00

Sorting through the nearly anthropological layers of beauty product in my bathroom closet, I came across a tiny vial of mystery perfume.

I'm going to guess that the largest print on the bottom-of-the-bottle lable is not its name.

"What's that fetching scent you're wearing?"

"Flammable."

My day

2010-08-31T17:14:00.002-06:00

9 a.m. wake-up call from Penske, wondering why I didn't finish making my reservation online last night and offering an even better deal over the phone. SOLD! Mike at Penske, you're my hero du jour. Penske, for many reasons, I ♥ you.

Called on a half-dozen different property listings, get shot down on one that was really great, got a lead on another super-great one that just might work out all the way around. Hooray!

Called the power company to give notice of the date to shut off my electricity.

Peed in a cup. "Awkward" just doesn't cover the experience ...

Gave notice of intent to vacate my apartment. Sad. Paid final month's rent. Got marching orders for final checkout ...

Paid phone bill.

Dropped of consignment load No. 1 of ... oh, too many ... yikes. There isn't enough time.

Found out I passed the pee test.

Faxed employment agreement and relocation reimbursement agreement.

Confirmed stopover locations for the trip out. I have awesome, amazing, generous, hospitable friends. You guys rock.

I've only cried once since deciding to do this, and it wasn't when I gave notice at my job, and it was a short-lived cry. And except for that one moment of sadness, I've had nothing but peace about this decision (once I got the stomach-knotting experience of resigning my job out of the way).

It feels like growing up again. Or growing up more. Or maybe just growing up. I'm leaving people and places I love, but I'm going to meet new people, find new places and experience new things. So far, I regret nothing about this.

I'm so excited!

Wednesday night's run

2010-08-12T17:47:00.000-06:00

I was weakened by my blisters. Stupid blisters. Even taping them didn't seem to help this time, as it has in the past. Not sure what the deal is.

null

Tuesday night's run

2010-08-12T17:46:00.000-06:00

And then Tuesday night ... (this was the one that found me gasping up Harney toward 30th Street ...)

null

Monday's Run ...

2010-08-11T22:57:00.002-06:00

To get out of the habit of running in circles — literally — I'm trying some routes around town.

My feet aren't crazy about it, but I find that I run farther and in a better frame of mind when I'm not trying to count laps.

I also like the added challenge of the hills that crop up in these routes.

For instance: I will never again take for granted the slope up 15th Street from Harney toward the cemetery. That sucker's a killer.

And running up Harney from, oh, Ninth to 13th or so? Or from 15th to 30th? Good Lord. I'm crazy.

So here's Monday night's endeavor:
(The embedded map didn't work. Apologies.)

MapMyRun.com View 08/10/2010 Route in Laramie, Wyoming

2010-08-05T19:37:00.001-06:00

Damn you, Bresnan! Get your freaking act together already!

Challenged

2010-07-28T21:44:00.002-06:00

I'm trying to be a cleaner, healthier, more hygeinic person, and the result is that I've slapped myself in the face with my own glove, cast down the gauntlet and issued an ultimatum to myself.

I said: "Self! Your apartment's a mess. ALWAYS a mess! Clean it up!"

So I'm trying to put away clothes as I try them on, decide against them and cast them into the chair-turned-laundry holder. I like my chair. More specifically, I like sitting in my chair, so I'm trying to keep the chair I like sitting in clear of the laundry I'm not wearing. I'm trying to do my dishes on a regular basis, vacuum my living room more regularly and (detested of all chores, for whatever reason) sweep and mop my kitchen more regularly.

I said: "Self! This not flossing every day stuff is nonsense! You have tons of floss — use it!"

So I'm trying to floss every day. Twice a day, if I can manage it. I don't like it, and my fingers don't like it, but my fingers and I, together, we're trying. My mouth feels happier.

I said: "Self! You've gained ten pounds since your gym closed. You're not challenging yourself enough! Running a couple nights a week isn't cutting it, and you keep eating lots of sugar and pizza and drinking quite a bit of alcohol. Cut it out!"

I can't say anything about the drinking alcohol bit, as anyone I spent Saturday night around can attest, but I'm trying to make up for the running bit. For a couple weeks, I told myself that if I did five miles every other night, well, that was good. More than good. And if I had stuck to it, it would've continued to be good, or more than good.

I didn't stick to it, though, because it was too easy, after one day off, to take another day off ... and another ... and another ...

The new challenge is to run three miles a night, six nights a week, and to see how that works for two weeks. And then I plan to add some mileage. Stop laughing.

I said: "Self! You talk to yourself way too much! Stop it!"

For two whole hours, I owned a stray cat who followed me, howling quite loudly, to my apartment. At 5 a.m., though, I gave up and took it to the animal shelter, where Officer Cleven kindly let a pyjama-clad me deposit the yowling orange-striped girl into a cage, asked me to fill out some paperwork, and watched as I drove home, crying all the way. I'm a terrible person. And I'm back to talking to myself. *sigh* Well, at least I'm still working on three out of four.

Goodness

2010-07-27T23:31:00.002-06:00

Sorry. There's just not much to write about that I can write about or want to write about.

Some uninteresting tidbits instead:

It's freezing in our office, and I mean FREEZING. The boiler in our building died (may it rest in peace), and the air condition has to keep running because of all the computers and computer servers in the building, so .... we freeze. It's about 61 degrees as I type this, and when your job entails eight hours of sitting and reading, that's just plain frigid. My hands are so cold they hurt.

Tonight, on top of my rather professional-looking dress, I've added a sweater (not so odd, but wait — there's more), fingerless gloves (which Josh so kindly said look more like toeless socks ...), fuzzy slippers that would make an acid trip even trippier, a handmade scarf (Kristie, you rock) and a shawl. Yes. A shawl. Give me a tin cup and I could easily panhandle on Grand Avenue. It'd be warmer out there.

* * * * *

I love kissing. There's just nothing more that I can say on that subject.

* * * * *

I hate having dental work done, but my dentist here in Laramie gets major props for a) nearly painless novocaine shots (except for the one time when she hit a nerve and I got better acquainted with the ceiling) and b) the speediest filling work I've ever experienced. It gives me more time to sleep off the coming-off-of-novocaine effects. Hurrah, Mrs. Dentist — hurrah.

A conversation

2010-07-13T22:18:00.002-06:00

Deb: "Sarah, do you know what July 24 is?"

Me: "It's not my birthday ..."

Deb: "No. It's National Tequila Day."

Me: "Is there a National Vodka Day?"

Josh: "I want National Scotch Day."

Me: "We're goin' global here!"

Deb: "Bob wants National Bob Day."

Me: "That's every day, Bob."

Bob: (something incoherent)

Deb: "Bob!"

Me: "Wha ...?"

Deb: "He said he wants National Viagara Day."

In which I had no narrow escapes from explosives

2010-07-06T19:26:00.003-06:00

When we were kids, my brother and I loved to blow stuff up.

He took it a step further with the fire bit, but - like most bad childhood habits - he outgrew that, and the Dumpster lived to see other trash bags.

The Fourth of July was a magical time, sort of like Christmas, but with louder noises and an ever-present scent of burning fuse. Sometimes burning hair and burning flesh, but not too often.

We were experts at lighting impossibly short fuses and running for our lives. We would have been wonder explosives experts in the military. Oddly enough, my brother's now aiming for the other side of that profession, having signed into the Navy last week so Uncle Sam can pay for medical school. Life, you are truly ironic.

Anyway.

Sometime between accidentally branding my arm with the punk (that cattail-looking lighter stick-thing) and becoming responsible for the funding of my own wardrobe and hairstyles, I outgrew the fascinanation with dashing away from explosives. I don't know when it happened or why, but the "Woo!" factor just isn't there anymore. I can't remember the last time I bought actual fireworks. Those champagne poppers for New Year's Eve don't count.

So I was content to sit on a lawnchair surrounded by the Springers and 15,000 strangers Sunday night as we watched a brave Someone Else light off very big explosives. Good show, Gillette. Just wish the finale had been a bit more ... finale-ish. It was like you were just getting started when it was over. Sadness.

Randomness and some stuff that I maybe shouldn't confess ...

I don't know what I was dreaming about, but I woke up at 2:30 a.m. Monday, whisper-yelling "Shoo! Get away! Shoo! SHOO!" at a pair of jeans that was lying on the floor by my bed. No idea ...

* * *

I'm re-reading Harry Potter. All of 'em. We're currenly evading the Prisoner of Azkaban.

* * *

I bought Staind's "Illusion of Progress" while I was home over the weekend. Love the whole thing.

* * *

I'm not a runner, but during my visit to the folks' place, I ran a 5½-mile loop. Twice. It included a brutal uphill stint that I was certain I would never be able to tackle at anything faster than a turtle-ish crawl, but there I was, jogging and panting my way up Boxelder Road. It felt so fantastic that I decided to ditch the Loop-de-Park routine here in Laramie and try a little road running instead.

The result: I'm horrified and humbled by the life-draining difference a couple thousand feet in elevation can make. A full 20 minutes before I'd planned to quit running, I was walking and wheezing, two miles from home. I won't be deterred. Someday, I'll make the full route at 7,200 feet. I will DO it. I just haven't attempted it since. It is Jubilee Days, after all ...

* * *

Dear men of the world (specifically shorts-wearing men of the world): wear underwear.

The horror! Erin and I were simply enjoying a drink of an evening at a local establishment, only to turn around and see it hanging out of Douchebag du Jour's shorts. Pretty sure he did it on purpose, but I suppose it's possible that someone really is that unfortunate in their choice of clothing. I doubt it, though.

The upside was the bartender's reaction when we explained why we were in such a hurry to get the hell out of there and for God's sake, get us our tabs now. I've never seen a guy so grossed out and horrified in my life. Priceless.

* * *

Sarah's Mullings. Perhaps I'll name the next blog that. Thanks for the suggestion, Google-searcher.

* * *

Assholes come in all shapes, sizes, professions and tattoos. The latest nominee to the hall of fame: A thieving, lying, town-skipping former business owner. Seriously, dude ...

* * *

Most of my dreams are incoherent travels through impossible landscapes, strung together in a whirlwind that makes my head hurt when I wake up and try to remember them.

But I've had two dreams lately that, in the midst of the insanity, involved very coherent philosophical conversations with persons imaginary about such things as marriage and love (last night) and faith (sometime last week). It's incredibly odd to wake up and realize I actually had a good, wise thought in the middle of my snoring.

I'm not a runner. No. Really.

2010-06-29T16:45:00.000-06:00

Begin.

Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left.

My feet hit the asphalt in a sort-of rhythm, I swerve into the street to avoid a sprinkler here, another one there.

Right. Left.

My breathing is getting heavier, and I can feel my heartbeat increasing. I try to focus on the music in my headphones, try to find a rhythm that I can thwap-thwap my feet to.

Right. Left.

Round a corner. This is always the part in the first lap when I wonder what I'm doing. "First is the worst," I tell myself. "First. Worst. First. Worst." It's a nice rhythm.

Wait. First what? Lap? Mile? Hour? Crap. Depends on the night. The first lap, definitely, is the worst of all the laps I run. Except for the last half of whatever turns out to be my last lap. Because it's that last lap that makes me decide to take it down to a walk for the rest of the hour. Whatever. New song. Need to find a new rhythm.

Right. Left.

I've rounded another corner and lurched my way halfway through another leg of the four that make up a lap in this park. It's at this point, at a little jog in the path, usually when I'm trying to gauge where the next sprinkler is, that it occurs to me:

I am not a runner.

Like, at all. Not even close.

I'm nearing the corner that signals the last leg of the first lap. Since the first is the worst (I've settled on the "first lap" theory, because I have to psych myself up somehow, and that's all I've got), I convince myself that the worst will soon be over, and I can just settle into a rhythm for the next who knows how long.

But back to me not being a runner.

I'm a couch potato. A die-hard couch potato. I love everything about being a bump on a log, except the shape that goes with being a bump. I'm a couch potato who wants to be disguised as a fit, healthy person.

The only way that costume fits is to haul my arse out to the park for an hour a night, come hell, high water, sprinklers, foxes, racoons (no kidding) and various varieties of humans, sometimes in various stages of intoxication.

I'm not a runner. But I run anyway. The secret (for me) is to not break into an outright run. It could be called jogging by a very imaginative person. It's not fast. It's not pretty. It'll never get me into a marathon (thank God), and I'll never win races with it. But it keeps me moving. Keeps me in the clothes I have. Keeps me very, very aware of my lungs.

And last night was the best since last fall. Probably since last summer, since before I went to Canada. Four and a half miles — six laps — of right-left-right-left sprinkler-swerving goodness. My knees and feet are in agony today. And I feel amazing.

But I'm not a runner. And I never will be. A runner would tackle those laps much faster and with much more grace.

But for a couch potato, I'm doing pretty good.

Amber = ♥AMAZING♥

2010-06-26T00:15:00.003-06:00

I gotta plug this:

http://www.myspace.com/amberinezjohnson

One of my dearest friends in the whole wide, windy world has taken the plunge into recording, and I'm blown away. I've heard some of these songs in their raw, still-being-written stages; I've heard them finished and sung to acoustic guitar. I could never have imagined that the finished products could be this amazing.

Amber, may you and your beautiful voice be heard throughout the world. Love ya, girl.

The Internet is reading my mind. And it's judging me.

2010-06-24T16:58:00.004-06:00

No more than two minutes after I had decided that I really do despise someone for the despicable crime of existing and breathing and getting what I've desperately wanted for ... a long time, I clicked over to a different Web site and was met with this:

I'm not kidding. "Irony" doesn't cut it. Not even close. "Lemon juice" and "papercut" and "get the hell out of my head" come to mind, though.

ADD and the ... what? where?

2010-06-19T16:38:00.002-06:00

A glimpse at my shattered attention span today, as seen through the 10 Internet Explorer windows I currently have open.

IE Window 1:
AP Exchange, where I search for relevant pictures, graphics, stories, breaking news, etc., to help me do my job intelligently and efficiently.

IE Window 2:
XTreme Workflow, where I approve/reject the page I've sent electronically to the pressmen in Cheyenne.

IE Window 3:
Newsys Content Manager, where I approve/reject the comments of readers who love us, hate us, think we're idiots and that we don't cover what they think is important, timely, relevant news (example: their kids' birthday party in the park. I'm not kidding).

IE Window 4:
Facebook. 'Nuff said. Actually, within Facebook, I flip between my account and that of the job, where I post links to stories, information about key upcoming stories, links to view our front page for the day; I interact with readers and maintain contact and other information for our office.

IE Window 5:
MySpace. Now that is enough said.

IE Window 6:
AdBuilder clipart database, where I am searching for a good piece of clipart to use to tease our Father's Day story for tomorrow.

IE Window 7:
The Society of Professional Journalists, where I am trying, when I can focus for more than ten seconds at a time, to figure out my membership.

IE Window 8:
UFC.com, where I was searching for information about WEC (see entry on Window 10).

IE Window 9:
Blogger, where I am here, now, talking to you.

IE Window 10:
WEC.com, where I was searching for information to help a coworker figure out how to bill an event in our TV listings in the sports section.

Other windows that I have open: ACT Editorial; Quark XPress; Microsoft Outlook; a Windows file folder; and a Word document.

I download a bit of clipart from Window 6, realize I need to unzip it, but first I take a look at my page in Quark. Wait. Someone may have written to me on Facebook. Nope. Hey - why do I have a window open for the UFC? Oh, yeah - WEC. Need to check that. Hey, Robert ... (discussion ensues). What was I doing? Oh. Clip art. Wait. I thought I downloaded some already. Yup. Unzip it. Check how it looks on the page. No. Not that one. Maybe another one. Oh. A new e-mail in Outlook. Junk. Why do I have a Word file open? Oh, yeah. I was supposed to be pre-proofing the Father's Day story. Father's Day ... Clip art. Teaser. Wait. New text message on the phone. Eh. Won't answer it just now. Don't like this song on my iPod - change it. Check Exchange. Nothing new. Dangit - proofread the story! Wait ... there was something else ...

Is there a drug for this? Like, legitimately? Crimeny ...

♫Amber is the Color of Your Warning Light♪

2010-06-16T19:21:00.004-06:00

For nearly three weeks now, I've been basking in the amber glow of a "service engine soon" light. It doesn't flash, it doesn't beep ... it just glows. It's almost comforting at this point.

It freaked me out at first, considering Lazarus' history of internal problems, but there was no smoke; no steam; no spewing fluids; and no grinding, clunking, whirring or whining.

Dad says it's probably an oxygen sensor, which to me translates: Eh.

A coworker today got a panicked call from her sister, about to hit the road and just realizing that her "check engine" light has lit up.

An office conversation ensued, during which I found out that I'm one of three people in our little room who has chosen to ignore the orange light.

Our consensus was this: A mere "check/service engine" warning is far too vague. It needs to be more specific. Like: "Engine Explosion Immenent" or "Could Probably Wait 'Til The Next Oil Change."

"It needs to have color-coded warnings, like the terrorism threat level," one person said.

I agree. If your car is going to terrorize your psyche with lighted warnings, you should at least know what level of anneurism to have when you see the light.

Me? I'm still going with a Code Green alert level. I won't be camping out at my mechanic, waiting for them to open in the morning.

Rub some dirt on it. Literally.

2010-06-14T15:53:00.002-06:00

All right, folks. The Laramie River, like other Wyoming rivers the past couple of weeks, has apparently grown tired of its boundaries and is trying to expand.

Expand into streets, yards, basements, etc.

The city of Laramie desperately needs volunteers today (tomorrow, too, I'm sure) to help sandbag around the area of the Clark Street Viaduct (and elsewhere, too, probably).

The volunteer hotline is 721-1845.

The toss-up between 29 and 31

2010-06-09T21:19:00.003-06:00

My 29th birthday was a pretty depressing affair. I won't go into details, but it was the loneliest day of my year that year. Competing for loneliest day of my life ...

My 31st might beat it for Worst Ever status.

I won't go into details about that either, except to say that at 11:30 p.m., I was taking a temper-tantrumish break from my late-running job to call my mom, very near tears, very much needing to talk to at least one friendly person on my birthday.

It didn't help that when she asked how I was doing overall and I assured her that I was quite, quite depressed overall, her advice was: "Now, now. Don't be depressed."

Sure. Let me just flip that switch ... Oh. Yeah. There isn't a switch ... Anyone got a spare happy pill?

I freaked out over 30. I just stayed curled up on the floor for 31. Good grief.

Fare thee well, Alaska

2010-06-04T23:19:00.001-06:00

Leaving Anchorage
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

On my final day in Alaska, in that final day's final hour, the waters of the Cook Inlet decided to finally get a little choppy.

Like the inlet was waving goodbye ...

Sad.

As I later told Nate, I can't believe I didn't just ignore the return ticket and start a new life up there.

But as I told Jessi, Alaska is too breath-takingly beautiful to become my mundane, everyday experience. I'd hate to one day look at the mountains, the ocean, the beauty of it all and realize that I hadn't gasped in awe.

It's a place I can leave and dream of returning to; a place that can haunt my dreams; a place that will always be way too big for words.

I'll see you again, Alaska.

Oh, my FREAKING heck!

2010-06-04T16:20:00.001-06:00

Mama moose
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Are you KIDDING me??

My friend Ingrid had told me about this coffee shop in Homer - Latitude 59 - which we never found.

But one wrong turn in search of said coffee shop instead put us right next to a mama moose and her two babies.

"Stayinthecar, stayinthecar, stayinthecar, Sarah. Do. NOT. Get. Out. Of the car."

I think Jessi was worried I'd hop out and hug the moose for being there.

*****

I had spent nearly a week in supposedly moose-infested country without seeing a single moose.

(The two in the pen at the reindeer farm don't count for two reasons: 1 - They're in captivity, and their being sighted by me was involuntary; and 2 - they ignored me as completely as they could)

I had decided that moose in Alaska were mythical creatures, and all the stories I'd heard about them were part of a giant conspiracy to tick me off (I think pretty highly of myself sometimes). I was settling moose into the same make-believe category as Yetti, Sasquatch and Prince Charming.

So Thursday, on the drive down to Homer, Jessi (who despises moose so completely that human language fails to be able to express it) was determined to find me a moose.

Nearly four hours on the road and a failed non-hike into a bog (no bug spray with us), not a single moose.

I was pretty bummed out about it, and I guess it showed on my face.

Jessi started laughing. Hysterically.

"What?" I said. "WHAT?!? You saw one, didn't you??"

"No," she said. "You're just so upset. I wish you could see the pout you just had on your face. You're so - Oh! There's one!"

I thought she was kidding.

I looked out the window. "Yeah, ri - IIIIIIGHT!" (that last part was me shrieking my fool head off)

There was the ginormousest moos munching on a tree right by the road.

He was the first of eight moose I saw in Alaska. Finally.

In line after that initial sighting, though, this mama and her kiddos were the most exciting encounter. She wasn't fazed at all by our being there, me about to bounce out of my seatbelt with excitement and Jessi praying that the mama gene wouldn't suddenly kick in and cause her to charge the car.

She didn't, and my giddiness was complete. I probably didn't stop grinning the whole trip back to Anchorage.

A light in the distance

2010-06-04T16:07:00.001-06:00

Me and a lighthouse
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

I was so sad last year that, along Maine and PEI, I didn't get to meet a lighthouse.

So Jessi indulged me and let me have a few minutes to commune with this one.

There's something altogether romantic and sad and heroic about lighthouses. I can't describe it, but I love looking at them.

And even though I didn't get to go really near any last year, I loved how, during our middle-of-the-night drive up the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick, I could mark the time of our drive by the flashing beacons that punctuated the blackness.

I ♥ Kayaking

2010-06-04T16:03:00.001-06:00

Amigas on the water
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

I do.

I fell in absolute love with kayaking, starfish and jellyfish on this outing.

For about 4½ hours, we paddled our arms off around Sadie Cove and Tutka Bay, admiring the elegant undulations of jellyfish, holding starfish and wishing, wishing, wishing that a whale would pop up to say hello (none did).

Amazing day.

This is where we stayed. Seriously.

2010-06-04T15:57:00.002-06:00

arriving at the resort
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

You can only get to it by boat.

And we were the only ones kayaking that day, so it was a private guided tour.

And we were one of only three groups staying there. And the weather was perfect, the water like glass, and Chris an amazing guide, and the views perfect ... it was the PERFECT weekend.

By the time we got back to Homer the next day, it was full-swing Memorial Day Weekend, with all the people that swarm over such places at that time ... but we had a perfect weekend around the corner from Sadie Cove.

P-E-R-F-E-C-T.

We saved $200 and still got this view

2010-06-04T15:51:00.001-06:00

Our view Friday morning
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

For $200 (plus taxes, etc.), we could have stayed in a very nice cabin with a very nice hot tub and a very nice view.

For $8, we stayed in a tent right on the beach and had this view when we woke up.

Granted, the bathroom was a long, chilly-in-boxers walk down the road, and getting dressed in a tent is always an interesting adventure, but ...

Totally worth it.

Like I said: How many opportunities like this will a girl's life present?

Exactly.

Salty n' sassy

2010-06-04T15:49:00.001-06:00

the Salty Dawg Saloon
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

The Salty Dawg, where we actually only bought one drink on our own ... we were assisted in our overindulgence by generous fellas the rest of the night.

We met a fisherman with stories the size of the One That Got Away who got my number and let us smoke his cigarettes and do a shot with him.

We called an end to our night when we realized we still needed to set up the tent. It was dark, which is indicative of how absolutely late it was. Well past midnight.

A very memorable night, in all ...

Oh, Homer ...

2010-06-04T15:43:00.001-06:00

On the beach in Homer
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Thursday, we arrived in Homer in time to decide to ditch the hotel option and to instead pitch a tent on the beach.

One of the best decisions we may have made.

How many times do you get to camp on the beach on a warm springy night in Alaska with a nearly full moon rising above some filmy clouds? Exactly.

Seafood dinner at El Pescadoro accompanied by local beers (the Homer Pale Ale and the Red Knot - my fave being the Red Knot), then off to the Salty Dawg ...

This picture doesn't do the color justice

2010-06-03T20:28:00.001-06:00

Cooper Landing
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

I cannot - EVER - adequately describe the color of Kenai Lake.

"Amazing" is inadequate, but it'll have to do.

That's really all I wanted to say.

But I could have stood there at Cooper Landing for the rest of the afternoon and just stared at that lake and been happy.

At least two of the rivers that feed it - the Kenai and the Russian - also have hues of that amazing color, and I've never seen anything like it before. Rivers and lakes whose mere water takes your breath away upon seeing it ...

Giddyup!

2010-06-03T20:20:00.002-06:00

Cisco!
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

My experience with horses has been spotty and, at times, unpleasant.

When I was 7, a damnable creature in Montana flung me off his back and into the corral full of ... well. All the things corrals are full of.

When I was 11, sitting on the rail of a corral at the same summer camp, watching a friend ride, a wasp got stuck in my hair and proceded to sting me several times. Granted, it had nothing to actually do with a horse, but ... I let it count anyway.

I may have ridden when I was 14 at a different summer camp in Wyoming or Montana; I don't remember. When I was 15, my brother and I went for a ride along the beach in California.

And, excepting a 20-minute sort-of ride in Colorado a few years ago with Amber, that beachy jaunt was the last time I saddled up.

Too long, I know. And there I was in Anchorage, with an entire day to kill, my horse-allergic friend still somewhere in southeastern Alaska and me with an urge to DO something, for cryin' out loud!

So I did.

I contacted Horse Trekkin' Alaska, made an appointment and spent 2 hours with Steve, Tina, Laura and Cisco (seen here), walking through a forest and enjoying how utterly green and gorgeous it was and chuckling to myself that it was snowing back in Laramie.

And I GALLOPED for the first time in my life.

It was terrifyingly fantastic. I want to do it again.

I didn't tell Tina (or anyone else) about getting bucked off when I was 7; I merely confessed my fear of walking behind a horse, because that had always been strongly discouraged (forbidden) at camp.

No problem, Tina said, just let the horse know you're there, and there shouldn't be a problem.

And there wasn't.

For somone who hadn't ridden in half a lifetime, Tina said she was pretty impressed with how I handled Cisco.

I was, too.

And I had a blast.

The open road

2010-06-03T20:01:00.001-06:00

Hatcher Pass
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Hatcher Pass.

It doesn't sound like someplace you want to get stuck. It almost sounds like the kind of place where you'd hear the echoing strains of duelling banjos floating around the snow-covered rock edifices surrounding you.

Apparently, it's also not a place that gets plowed entirely until the Fourth of July. I'm serious.

In one day, I had gone from sea level in Anchorage to above the treeline in Hatcher Pass, hoofing the last mile or so of closed road to the site of the long-since-abandoned Independence Mine. There's a (closed) visitor's center there that won't even be opened this year, and without snowshoes (as I was), that's as far as ya get.

Which was fine.

It was an interesting place to see and to imagine hardy miners and their equally hardy wives living over half a century ago, days' travel from the nearest town and surrounded by scenery that could either stir you into deeper communion with God or drive you to fling yourself off one of the cliffs. A lot of the buildings are still standing in one way or another, some leaning on others or on rocks under the weight of years and snow and (dare I imagine it?) avalanches ... each time I fixed my binoculars on a window, I half-expected a shadowy form to move in front of it, and I was prepared to scream like a little girl and wet my pants if such a thing actually happened.

No dice.

Here's a funny Sarah-in-Hatcher-Pass Story, though:

To alert bears and other wildlife that you're in the area and to discourage their approach, it's recommended that you make as much noise as possible. Conversation is a good way to do this, but as a lone hiker (spare me the lectures), conversation looks (and feels) a little loonier than even I'm willing to be.

I did pray out loud for a little while, assuring God that I felt absolutely tiny and insignificant in the presence of such brutal majesty ... but prayer for the out-of-practice doesn't go on for very long, and soon, I was quietly making my way up that pass again.

Singing, then.

The only thing that came to mind, though, were Christmas carols.

Oh, well, I thought, I'm the only one I've seen on this road, and the bears don't care that it's not actually Christmastime. Here goes.

My boisterous, warbling strains of "Deck the Halls" bounced around me and gave me comfort in the knowledge that any hungry wildlife had likely been repelled by the noise.

Upon leaving the visitor's center, though, I heard other noises echoing off the mountains.

Voices.

Men's voices.

Binoculars pressed to my glasses, I scanned and scanned and scanned ... only to find a group of what appeared to be college-aged men snowshoeing along the ridge far above me. I'm pretty sure they were as repelled by my carolling as the local wildlife was.

Quite embarrassed, I made my way back to my car a mile below ...

Good grief.

But I didn't get eaten by a bear in Hatcher Pass, either.

Water, water everywhere

2010-06-02T17:56:00.001-06:00

Little Susitna River
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

There were rivers and streams and waterfalls and lakes and ponds and oceans and inlets and arms and sounds all over the place.

This particular body of water is the Little Susitna River, which I said hello to on my way up Hatcher Pass to the site of the Independence (gold) Mine.

Hello, Su!

How can you NOT love this face?

2010-06-02T17:54:00.001-06:00

Iditarod HQ
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

One of the puppies at the Iditarod headquarters ...

To the dogs

2010-06-02T17:53:00.001-06:00

Iditarod HQ
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Wasilla, Alaska, besides its newfound fame as Sarah Palin's home, is also home to the Iditarod headquarters and, when I visited, a litter of puppies who will, I'm sure, become Iditarod champions. It also has another Balto statue in the Iditarod museum/gift shop.

Side note: I love puppies. LOVE them ... it was so tempting to just drop one into my suitcase and bring him back with me ...

Balto!

2010-06-02T16:55:00.001-06:00

Balto statue in Palmer
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

If you don't know the story of Balto, then my friend Amber is clearly not your friend and has not made you learn the history of what inspired the Iditarod dogsled race.

(CAUTION: I get a bit teary every time I think of this story)

In 1925, a diptheria epidemic was at risk of breaking out in Nome, Alaska, and the surrounding areas. The antitoxin serum could be delivered by train only as far as Nenana, 674 miles away. Thus begain the Great Race of Mercy, a 5½-day relay of 20 mushers and about 150 dogs, the most famous of which was Balto, the lead dog on the team that ran the final 50-some-odd miles of the relay. The run was made in treacherous blizzard conditions and hurricane-force winds that reportedly blew sleds over and off-course and, in at least one instance, reportedly sent the box of serum into a snowdrift. Balto's musher, Gunnar Kaasen, said he had to dig the box out of a drift with his bare hands. The wind chill at various points of the run reached -70 Farenheit, and at least one musher got frostbite on his hands while putting blankets on his dogs. Some dogs froze to death during the run.

Without the antitoxin, the mortatlity rate among the 10,000 people in the area surrounding Nome was expected to be near 100 percent.

The serum was delivered, however, and the reported death toll was somewhere between 5 and 7 people (depending on who you ask). It's suspected that the actual toll was around 100, as the native poplulation was known to sometimes bury their dead children without notifying anyone of the death.

A large statue of Balto can be found in New York City, and various smaller statues of Balto and Togo (another serum run lead dog) can be found in Palmer and Anchorage.

I dare you to tell me you're not a little teary, too.

Santa, baby

2010-06-02T16:36:00.001-06:00

Reindeer farm
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Oh, my giddly-goodness! Did you know there's a reindeer farm? One where you can feed and pet the reindeer?

Interesting reindeer factoids:

○ Reindeer and caribou are the same thing.
○ The antlers of these reindeer were in velvet, which meant we couldn't touch the antlers - they're covered in tissue that's full of blood vessels and nerve endings, and it's very painful to the reindeer to have their antlers touched at this stage.
○ Male and female reindeer grow antlers, and both sexes lose their antlers, except for pregnant females. "It's a built-in pregnacy test," the lady giving me my tour said.
○ When reindeer walk, there's a distinct clicking noise that's often mistaken to be the sound of their hooves clacking against rocks. Not so - they have a tendon in their hind legs that "clicks" with every step they take. This tendon prevents them from really being able to kick anything behind them (in this case, me).
○ This particular group of reindeer is trained to see the little plastic cup that I was carrying and associate it with food. They're quite aggressive when they see it, and they've been known to paw at the person holding the cup when they don't get fed soon enough (read: immediately). To prevent mauling by otherwise-docile reindeer, hide the cup in a pocket (or under your arm) out of their sight (NOT behind your back - they know that trick), spread your empty hands out in front of you and back away, if needed. They get the picture pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, once they've figured out that you don't have any food, they really don't want anything to do with you. It made picture-taking a creative venture.

The view

2010-06-02T16:28:00.001-06:00

Turnagain Arm
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Remember when I said it offered fantastic views?

Well, here you go.

Alaska, Day 3

2010-06-01T19:36:00.001-06:00

Bird Ridge Trail
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

This road went ever on and on ...

Good Lord. This was the steepest, never-endingest trail I've tried in a long time (this from the wimp who's never made it to the top of Medicine Bow Peak ... shame, I know). The views made up for the surety that I was going to die of an asthma attack and my carcass would bounce and tumble its way to the train tracks and/or highway below, if a bear didn't make a snack of me along the way ...

This, folks, was the path that lead to the trailhead of the Bird Ridge Trail. Beautiful, breathtaking views. Seriously worth the hike. But the hike seriously took a toll on my legs going up and on my knees and feet going down. Pretty iffy there a couple times.

Alaska, Day 3

2010-06-01T19:31:00.001-06:00

Beluga Point
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

At an outcropping of rock known as Beluga Point, I scrabbled around on jagged rocks, admired water marks left on the rocks from higher tides, evaded a persistent bee, and did not see a beluga whale.

I DID see this phenomenal view (and variations on it), and that was enough for me. And there was another mountain goat on the hillside behind me, across the highway, overlooking the Turnagain Arm (that's the water you're looking at here — the Turnagain Arm).

Alaska, Day 3

2010-06-01T19:27:00.001-06:00

Potter Marsh
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Potter Marsh. What a lovely thing to have just south of your city! A habitat for all sorts of creatures - birds, fish, mammals, you name it. The most exciting animal I saw there was a crane fishing for/fighting with its breakfast. Still - it was a beautiful place to be.

I blame the lack of fauna on the man who stumped up and down and up and down and up and down the boardwalks with his cane and his incredibly heavy footfalls. I'm sure it's some sort of self physical therapy for him, and good for him — but I think the noise frightened away anything besides flittery little birds such as this little guy here ...

Alaska, Day 2

2010-06-01T19:24:00.001-06:00

at Kenai Lake
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

With Jessi at Kenai Lake, on the drive back to Anchorage.

Alaska, Day 2

2010-06-01T19:23:00.000-06:00

Kenai Lake
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

The drive between Anchorage and Seward features this gem of a view of Kenai Lake ... the pictures I have of the lake don't do justice to the color. The COLOR! Oh, my goodness, the color! I've never seen blue like this anywhere else ... I couldn't get over it. So beautiful!

Alaska, Day 2

2010-06-01T16:47:00.001-06:00

Resurrection Bay
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Resurrection Bay, from aboard the Star of the Northwest

We took a glacier/wildife cruise out of Seward on Sunday and saw pretty much everything BUT a whale, which was OK.

For five hours, we cruised around Resurrection Bay (named not for its prolific zombie population, as I told a friend, but for the the fact that a Russian captain caught in a rather turbulent storm found safe harbor in the bay on what was the Russian Orthodox Easter Sunday. There you go.

Wildlife viewed: Mountain goats, sea otters, sea lions (!!), a black bear (from very, very far away ... and that's good enough for me), eagles ... and it seems like there's something else I'm forgetting.

Anyway. The cruise also took us past several abandoned World War II outlooks that were there to sound the alarm that the Japanese were trying to enter - which they did, at least once, via submarine. It also took us past the Fox Island spit, which is now home to a "ghost forest" - in 1964, as a result of the Good Friday Earthquake, a tsunami whose proportions I can't remember washed over Seward and, of course this little spit of land sticking out from Fox Island. Sea water permeated the root system of the trees there, simultaneously killing and preserving them into the dead-but-still-standing trunks that line the spit like so many jagged teeth.

Also seen: Bear Glacier, which has formed its own lake behind a line of vegetation and has released icebergs into said lake, which looked like broken ice cubs bobbing around behind a barrier (thankfully).

Alaska, Day 1

2010-06-01T16:35:00.001-06:00

Anchorage
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Anchorage, as seen from the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.

This was taken around 10 p.m. I'm telling you - having light until nearly midnight was a freaky, freaky experience ...

Alaska, Day 1

2010-06-01T15:50:00.001-06:00

From the plane (Canadian Rockies)
Originally uploaded by wyosarah203

Drove from Laramie to DIA; flew DIA to Dallas and barely made my flight from Dallas to Anchorage. I've never run that fast in my life, let alone run that fast while hauling so much luggage with me. I dodged, I swerved, I veered and ducked. The only thing I didn't have to do was hurdle. Thank goodness. And I made it. Seven hours from Dallas to Anchorage sitting with Juanita and Bob from Florida who shared a turkey sandwich with me, and I arrived in time to have dinner with Jessi and Jeremiah at the Brewhouse downtown and to take in the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail while enjoying some of the late-night sunlight that never ceased to totally freak me out the entire time I was up there.

B-I-G

2010-05-24T01:20:00.002-06:00

Alaska is huge.

I should have known that everything IN Alaska would be huge.

Jessi's apartment? Huge. Huge master bedroom. Ginornmous bathtub.

The bay? (She won't let me call it the ocean) Huge.

The drive down to Seward today? Hugely beautiful.

The boat we were on to see huge sea lions, big eagles and large mountain goats on the hills over the bay? Huge.

I have not (yet) seen any moose or whales, huge or otherwise. But I'll keep you posted.

I love Alaska. To Jessi's dismay, I love it too much to move up here - "I can't have something like this be my ordinary, everyday experience," I told her, to which I got the you're-crazy-that-makes-no-sense look. "But I don't have any friends up here! You could be my friend up here!" To which she got a shake of my head and a reiteration of why I'm not likely to move to Alaska anytime soon.

Anyway. I'm exhausted, and this is probably nonsensical.

But a final word about sea lions: I love them.

Imagine a place full of men lying around and belching nonstop at each other and eating.

That's what sea lions sound like. I could NOT stop giggling. The park ranger thought I was odd.

Toodles. I'm off in search of moose tomorrow.

2010-05-22T11:55:00.001-06:00

leeee-veeeng on a jet plane!

Frick!

2010-05-20T20:15:00.001-06:00

Leavi ... wait. What?

Last week was bad.

This week is just ... frustrating.

I already knew that my vacation would be off a bit when I found out the friend I'm going to visit would be spending a couple days in another city.

No worries - it's her job, I understand, it's out of everyone's control, we'll deal with it.

I'm packed, I'm ready to go, and then ... I didn't know for a couple days whether I was going.

The poor girl's grandpa died Monday night.

It's been sorted, trip's on, with some added heart-heaviness ... man. It's been a rough week. For everyone.

Pill kill

I don't take birth control — haven't for years — and today, I read the most ironic thing in the world about those magical little pills.

The wonder drug that lets girls let loose without those annoying little consequences that we otherwise know as babies could be responsible for killing the very sex drive that drove them to the pharmacy counter in the first place.

(The drop is attributed to oral contraceptives that affect hormone levels to prevent pregnancy, and not IUDs or other, nonhormonal contraceptives.)

Huh.

Well, you are 102 ...

I'm doing better about the whole in-my-30s thing this year than I did last year. No panic attacks, no curling up on the floor while crying to my mom on the phone. I'm doing good.

My subconscious seems to think I should be freaking out a bit more about it, though.

I had a dream that I was fighting someone in a boxing ring, and I didn't do very well. Bloody nose, bruised body — the works — at the end. Someone came up to console me afterward, and they said something along the lines of: "Well, you are 102 years old, you know. All things considered, you didn't do too bad."

I looked in a mirror then, and wouldn't you know - white, puffy hair, wrinkles, near-transluscent skin, everything. I was 102 years old. Not quite the same as my early 30s, but to my sleep-addled mind, I guess it might as well all be the same thing.

Googled

You'd think by now, after Googling the name of this blog repeatedly, whoever you are, you'd either have the address bookmarked or memorized. Apparently not, because almost every day, there you are in my traffic meter, Googling the name of this site.

Seriously?

When your mommy interviews for you

I was told a horrifying new job trend via a third-hand conversation.

Horrifying.

A man who conducts seasonal hiring for (anonymous) was told, during a recent hiring practices seminar, that this year, he should not be surprised if, while interviewing Johnny Job Hopeful, Johnny's mommy tags along.

I'm not talking about mommy bringing Johnny to the interview or helping him find the right room for the interview.

I'm talking about mommy interviewing with her dear little boy (or girl — let's be fair). Right there in the room. Answering questions on behalf of her precious little poopsie.

Here's why: Johnny (or Janie), expensively educated and counseled and medicated through his adolescent years, having graduated (or dropped out) and gingerly setting his cute lil' feet into the choppy waters of the real world, is now incapable of a) getting out of bed in the morning without Mom or Dad to gently shake him out of his stupor; b) working out his "duhs," "ders," "likes," "you knows" and text lingo into coherent sentences which are intellible responses to serious skill-assessing questions; and c) successfully navigating his way on a daily basis to a place of gainful employment.

Are you effing kidding me?

And this guy has to consider these kids as legitimate job candidates.

I don't know why I worry that I won't be able to get a job anywhere in the world. I don't have to bring my mommy or daddy to the interview with me. That should get me automatic bonus points.

What a bunch of pansy-assed ninnies I'll be in charge of some day.

I will always have a job.

Desperation

2010-05-13T21:14:00.002-06:00

I needed coffee tonight.

What I don't have is time to go get any.

What I found in the deep, dark recesses of my "filing cabinet" (it's really like a deskside pantry) was a foil-wrapped single-serving coffee-in-a-teabag.

It's caffeinated, and I guess that's what counts, but that's about all I can say for it.

To smell it makes you think of the car repair shop that you spent a few hours hanging out in when you were a kid, when your parents' only car broke down and there was no way to go anywhere besides the repair shop, so there you sat, scuffing your shoes on the floor, asking your mom a million ridiculous questions and never knowing that that smell would, in some fragment, haunt your olfactory senses the rest of your life.

It's the scent of really bad coffee mingled with motor oil, stale tobacco, body odor and (you didn't know it then) a little bit of Jack Daniel's.

What this coffee tonight is really missing is the Jack Daniel's. (Sorry, but if we're not BFFs on Facebook, you won't fully understand that one - Jutin T. and I had a wall conversation about this very topic this week.)

On a side note, I swear someone just drove their leafblower past our office. It had that shallow, revving sound of too much gas pedal and not enough horse power. Poor car.

I'm still here. Just not ... well, not HERE

2010-05-12T15:37:00.002-06:00

I know. Bad blogger.

Ever just look at everything around you and feel no inspiration to even try to convey it to someone else?

Well, there you go.

Anyway ...

- - - -

I couldn't figure out what bothered me about L'Oreal's new facial cleanser - the one with the "scrublet" - until a few days ago.

It's the word "scrublet."

It sounds like an affliction. Like something you catch.

You go to the doctor, you tell him what your symptoms are, and after an exam, he takes a deep breath, looks you dead in the eye and says: "Well, you have a scrublet." It sounds like something that should be surgically removed and kept in a jar, not something that should be rubbed across your face ...

- - - -

Every time I've told someone I got to keep time for a couple fights in Gillette over the weekend, they ask: "So you were a ring girl, right? In a bikini? Holding the cards that say what round's coming up next?"

No. NO!

I despise ring girls (some more than others). They're so ... skanky. They're pretty, but they're also pretty dumb, pretty slutty and pretty fresh from the pool of illegality as far as the men drooling over them are concerned. They're strippers in training. So I can totally see their appeal to men, but a lot of them are just too skeezy to be described or tolerated.

I was the timekeeper - I held a stopwatch, rang the bell at the start and end of the rounds and sounded the 10-second warning for each round. That's all I did, and it was the most fun I've had at a fight yet. I'm totally ready to go pro as a timekeeper. There's power in ringing that bell.

Dad went to the fights with me - or at least the first part, before I was recruited to hang out at the judges' table - and it was great to be able to share that with him. I got to introduce him to my coach and some of the guys from my gym, and he got to see something that I enjoy doing/watching (his only plea was that I never get into the ring myself ...).

- - - -

I've never been so happy to see Bob in all my life.

Here's how this week has gone (bear in mind that R from sports quit about a week ago)

Monday D (sports) on vacation, B (copy editor) on vacation, Bob (sports) sick, A (writer) sick, S's (copy editor) day off. There's no one in the sports department, and that leaves me coordinating - via a third party - with a different paper's sports editor who assumes that I know a) everything to do with every sport on earth and b) how to format hundreds of inches of stuff I've never had to deal with. Monday was a disaster.

Tuesday D (sports) on vacation, Bob (sports) sick, A (writer) sick, A (photog) sick, S (copy editor) sick. Same scenario with the sports section, except that with B (copy editor) back, I had a little more time to try to figure out those hundreds of inches of stuff I'd never dealt with. I did it wrong - I know I did - but at least it got done.

Today D (sports) on vacation, A (writer) sick, A (photog) sick. Bob (sports) is back! Halelujia!

This leads us to the Word of the Week: FRICK! It's become a mantra. I couldn't say it enough Monday and Tuesday (today's turning out better).

I've also eaten my weight in sugar this week. I stress, I eat. It's a bad quid pro quo. And the brownies and mini Reese's cups and little Kit-Kat bars seemed to be endless.

... and then I told them about it

2010-05-05T22:37:00.002-06:00

Tonight, I told Jason about my waltzing dream, and he laughed, then looked at Sholty and said, "Well, Sholty there might actually dance better than we think ..."

We left it at that.

They're building a mighty fine-lookin' boxing ring in the gym. Some posts were up today, and the mats have been cleared away from the floor for the space. Pretty exciting. This also means that I have to start sparring soon. *gulp* I've explained my nose vanity and getting-hit-in-the-face fear. No worries, they say ... we'll see ...

... and then we danced

2010-05-03T17:03:00.002-06:00

My dream this morning was hilarious.

I was at the gym, only the part that used to be the pool and has since been decked over into a fine MMA room was a pool again, and that's where we were having our lesson. But I didn't have my gym clothes, so I practiced (swam) in my street clothes.

But after a couple attempts at doing kicks in the water, Bradley and I gave up and started doing back flips and handstands instead ...

And then it was time to put the floor back over the pool, and then Jason said: "All right, guys, count it out — one-two-three, one-two-three ..."

And then everyone was waltzing. Sholty went whirling by with a partner. Then Joe. Then Bradley. All of them quite light-footed as they and their partners danced across the gray and green rubber foam mats ...

Except me.

I didn't have a partner.

And that's when Justin came walking across the room ("I'll dance with you, Sarah") ... and it turns out (in my dream, at least), that boy can dance. Waltz. Tango. You name it, he was pretty suave.

You should be terrified ...

2010-04-26T15:58:00.010-06:00

Well, at least, that's what I told Nate when he asked if I'm training to be a cage fighter (I'm not).

But I DID go to my first-ever fight event this weekend.

And I loved it.

Some pics:

(with Kim and Lisa before everything got started)

(Bradley, Jason and Joe)

(Shane, Jason, Joe, Linus and Becky)

(Joe wins)

This pose was common for fighters from our gym - four of the six fighters from the gym who competed won their bouts.

Two others (Grayson and Eric) weren't able to compete because their opponents backed out at the last minute.

Of the two who lost, one went to a judges' decision and the other just got into a really bad situation, and Jason threw in the towel to keep him from getting really hurt. So, big congrats to Joe, Dustin, Gaelen and Shane, and to Bradley, who fought like hell for all three rounds and lost in the judges' decision.

Grab bag

2010-04-23T22:59:00.002-06:00

"What will you be doing in 30 years?"

I was watching TV, and this was a commercial.

But it wasn't the financial planning/career development/life insurance/yawn ad that I thought it was.

"You'll be eating."

Well, now he had my attention.

"And you'll want your teeth for that."

True. Very true.

It was a freaking ad for 1-800dentist.com. And it's my favorite ad in a long time.

Well, that and the literacy.gov ad with the kids using their library books as train tickets to get to Oz, Hogwarts, Narnia, Wonderland and the like.

*****

Modern-built vehicles are a lot like the family dog.

At the most, you should only expect about 15 years out of them, after which they just kind of limp around and smell bad, and you want to cry every time you look at them. They require special diets; their exercise shouldn't be too strenuous, and you should just eventually prepare yourself for the worst. Don't be too surprised if it happens when you're out having fun.

*****

I carried an umbrella last night and today during the Great Spring Slurpee Event of 2010. It felt like a very Mr. Tumnus-ish thing to do, and it turned out to be pretty practical. These weren't snowflakes; they were snowballs that God was flinging on Laramie. Can you blame Him? Meanwhile, Lazarus is not handling the slushee-in-the-streets very well. Neither am I, for that matter. My nonfunctioning heater doubles as a nonfunctioning defroster/defogger, and the result isn't pretty. Add a battery that comes dangerously close to kerplunking after I drive through the mini-lakes that make up Laramie's streets, and I've about had it.

*****

In a month, I'll be on vacation.

(Hallelujia)

There aren't enough exlamation marks to convey the joy, so I won't start trying.

Yeesh.

2010-04-22T19:35:00.003-06:00

I've never felt so uninspired to write. Maybe "never" is an exaggeration, but ... I can't remember a time when I felt this uninspired. Maybe this is a depression. Yikes.

Shear Fear

I have a fear of going to get my hair trimmed.

Not because I'm afraid I won't like the cut.

I'm afraid of hairstylists. Actually, I'm more annoyed by them, but it's an expensive annoyance. We'll just call it fear.

So here's a tip for all you hairstylists (and wannabes):

When I say I want a shampoo and a cut (or a trim) ... that's all I want.

I don't want a deep-conditioning treatment. I don't want to color my hair. Ditto for perming it or straightening it. Don't try to sell me products. I like the products I use. I wouldn't use them if I didn't like them.

And for God's sake: Don't, as a last resort, insult my color, texture, product use, etc., in a desperate last-ditch effort to sell me these things. All you're doing is talking yourself out of a tip and a future customer.

A shampoo and a cut. That's it. Do that — and only that — and I may trust you when I do need something more.

And that's why it's been about three months since I sat in the twirly seat at a salon. I get easily tired of my self esteem and my checking account taking a hit at the same time.

How to lose a date in 10 minutes (or less)

My least-favorite question — especially on a first date, but at any point, really — is some variation of "You're so (pretty, smart, successful, witty, funny, yada, yada, yada); how come you're still single?" question.

Because here's what you're really asking, fellas: "What the hell is wrong with you? What's your defect? Should I cut and run while my only losses will be a nonfat latte and the tip?"

I get this question usually while we're still standing in line to order ... and while I'm not about to spill my beans before the barista has ground her beans, you've just shared — with glaring obviousness — what your defect is.

Thanks for the coffee. Don't call.

Before I go, though: I'm still single because I want to be. Nobody I've met so far has been worth giving up that freedom.

Brace yerself ...

2010-04-14T01:54:00.003-06:00

When someone (a normal someone, that is) says "that's a bracing wind," they probably mean it's chilly, cool, bordering on cold.

You might need a jacket, is what they're saying.

When someone from Wyoming says "that's a bracing wind," they mean you'd better find a sturdy structure to brace yourself against if you don't want to accidentally wind up in Nebraska or South Dakota. You might not want to wear anything that could be flung open/up/around at embarrassing and inopportune times, is what they're saying.

And you might need a jacket.

Tuesday's wind was bracing. In the Wyoming sense of the word.

I wouldn't mind it so much if it was blowing me to Oz or some other exciting place. Middle Earth. Narnia. Hogwarts. Nebraska is so not those places. I've driven across it. I know.

*****

I did my taxes tonight.

The problem with doing taxes is that you need all those bits of paper that were mailed piecemeal to you over an erratic span of time, and for someone like me, that just doesn't work. I hope the IRS understands why I'm attaching a copy of my latest student loan account statement instead of the handy Form Something-or-Other that Wells Fargo was kind enough to mail to me on a losable piece of paper.

I've searched all the piles of random paper in my apartment; I've even searched the logical boxes of semi-neatly filed paper in my apartment. Lots of receipts. Some paycheck stubs (!!). Some health insurance forms, 401(k) paperwork, life insurance stuff (I'm worth more to my family dead than alive, but don't tell them that - I'd like to think they like me for me), prescription papers, World Vision updates, Campus Crusade and Navigators newsletters, a letter I started writing to my brother (and apparently never finished) ... but none of the papers I needed (except my W-2 — I was just brilliant enough to hang on to that ... in a cookbook).

So here I am at the office at 2 a.m., because in this Thank-God-it's-the-Era-of-Electronic-Information age, I can download what I was dumb enough to lose in the first place. And I needed a Form Something-or-Other that wasn't conveniently included with the Other Important Forms and Such and Such Schedules in my booklet. (Unfortunately, I still can't access the Wells Fargo form ... hence the account statement).

In the end, the little bit I owe is much better than the $500+ I initially thought I owed (insert mild heart attack and a few tears), but worse than the refund I thought I was getting (small moment of jig-dancing glee).

I'm bordering on goofy under the influence Diet Coke — three cans of it. Who needs to sleep? Anyway ...

*****

Sholty, I am your sparring partner ...

I borrowed Jason's shinguards tonight, and from my vantage point, they made me look like a Darth Vader-in-the-making. With very thick shins.

They did not, however, block the frickin' ouch of checking one of Sholty's kicks, and my moment of "hang on — that hurt — give me a sec" has become "dang, that's kind of a goose egg growing on my shin ..." It'll be fun colors tomorrow.

Imagine if I hadn't had pads on ... eek.

In which KMart continues to flush itself down the toilet of my esteem

2010-04-12T15:29:00.003-06:00

Dear KMart:

It's not bad enough that your store is understaffed, crowded and dirty and that half your merchandise doesn't have a price on/near it. And that your "sale" price on the coffee I like was still more expensive than the non-sale price at another store.

Actually, that was bad enough.

But.

Saturday was a perfect kite-flying day, and you had no kites. None. Not even ugly, cheap ones with weird animé characters, as Wal-Mart did.

And then.

We found the hoola hoops. (joy!) We tried them out.

Until ...

Up-tight, perfectly-trimmed-goatee-sporting manager guy came over, broomstick firmly shoved up his ... well, anyway.

Apparently, we would "give kids ideas." (GASP!) He'd just had "at least a dozen 8-year-olds the other day" who wreaked hoola-hooping havoc in your store after they "got ideas" from the audacious college students who'd been whooping it up, and "it was a mess to clean up."

Really? You don't want kids to play with the toys in the toy aisle? You think the world is going to hell in a handbasket because 8-year-olds are trying to keep plastic hoops swinging around? Yeah. I can totally see the demise of society there.

The Grinch is seasonless and walks around your store, basking in his own self-importance.

I've had enough. I don't think I'll be back.

You're welcome for the peep show, sir

2010-04-03T23:41:00.003-06:00

At Wheatland, thankful to have escaped the whited-out, slushed-over, shouldn't-have-been-open approach to Sybille Canyon with my life and to be alive to appreciate how truly awful the coffee was that I was about to partake, I headed back out into the wind to continue the Northern Holiday Migration.

As I stood at my open car door, attempting to put my coffee inside before putting myself inside, an unseemly gust of vile wind came along, whooshing my skirt way over my head at the same time that it flung my car door shut (on me), slamming me into my car door frame.

And I screamed.

Like a little girl.

But no one heard it. The wind stole my scream and ran away with it.

All this as some unlucky soul was trying to park his car next to me. He got so much more than a parking spot. Apologies, whoever you are ...

There was no dignity to be salvaged as I collapsed into my car and tried to regain my composure and some fragment of my modesty.

As Eric said, nothing good happens in Wheatland; and as Kari said, it could have been worse: This all could have gone down at Vimbo's.

At least I shaved my legs.

... with a rusty poker

2010-03-31T17:37:00.003-06:00

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to launch a smear campaign against a certain good-fer-nuthin' realtor.

Can't do it.

Instead, if you're planning to sell a house in the Charlotte/Monroe/Matthews area of North Carolina, give me a jingle. I'd love to dish.

Give me a pitchfork, too. Mine's still bloody from the last torchlit villager rabble-rousing ...

And this is guilt ...

2010-03-25T15:51:00.004-06:00

Part of my job for the last couple of years has been printing a slightly large-print version of some of our content on a weekly basis for someone. And it was a pain to do it. And my boss' boss had to regularly remind me to do it, because it was pretty low on my list of priorities and pretty high on my list of irritations.

And then the guy went and died.

... And I felt relieved that I don't have to remember that part of my job anymore. I'm a terrible human being. I really am.

So this is writer's block ...

2010-03-24T22:51:00.003-06:00

I wish I had something profound or even slightly witty to share with you, but I don't.

I could blame it on nothing going on in my life, but that's the norm, and I'm usually able to pull something - something - out of that, and I'm coming up completely empty here.

Plinky suggests that I name a place I'd like to show my child for the first time. First, we have to imagine that I have a child ...

Well. Let's modify it and say a place I'd like to show my best friend's kids for the first time.

I'd show them the arboretum back home. In some massive falltime fog. There's something Narnian about that place in the fog, bare limbs looming out of the mist like hands that are reaching out ... There's magic there in the fog. I'd swear it. Aslan is waiting behind the next tree. Go find him.

Next, I'd show them the ginormous window ledges inside the Arts and Sciences building on the UW campus. I loved crawling up into one of those and studying or reading for hours at a time. My sanctuary, with a Prexy's Pasture view.

Then, I'd show them Yellowstone in May, right after the roads have opened, before the tourists clog up the roads and interupt your visit with dumb questions like "Where's the knob that turns Old Faithful on?" and "Where do you keep the animals at night?" You've gotta be there when the spring meltoff is at its heaviest, when the waterfalls are at their most powerful, when it could still dump a foot of snow on you and when everything is so .... so green. When you hit play on the "Last of the Mohicans" soundtrack and just drive.

Anyway. As soon as the writing funk is over, you'll know. The only real thing I could share involves my dreams, which are actually nightmares, and which I'd actually rather not dwell on too much. "Bad" doesn't cover it. Not close.

From the past

2010-03-22T17:49:00.002-06:00

Every 40 days, I have to re-save the same voicemails that I've been saving every 40 days for the past, oh, four years or so ...

Today's remembered gem: "Sarah, it's Brooke. You need to RUN - not walk - away from this guy. And since we all know you can't run, maybe you should steal a car to do it."

Only a few people can get away with that kind of hilarious honesty.

Brookie, you're awesome.

Overheard

2010-03-17T20:53:00.002-06:00

My favorite overheard conversation tonight:

L: "So the little kids come in for their class today, and [one of them] is running across the mat and suddenly stops short ... 'is that BLOOD?!!?' she asks, and I was like, 'well, yeah, some of it's probably blood ... some other stuff, too, probably ...' 'Oh, that's GROSS!' she says, and I'm like 'Well, the big guys play kinda rough sometimes ..."

This as E was mopping up the blood (which was gone by the time I came into the room ... and I'm thankful for that) and cleaning the rest of the mats before class tonight.

And it's true. The big guys play pretty stinkin' rough. Which impedes me from getting too rough with them. I'm not keen on needing to have my blood mopped up. And I like the shape my nose currently has.

That said, I get all glowy-happy-proud when, in the middle of a conditioning drill, Jason yells out first: "My name is JOE! Man! Look at that guy go!" And then a few seconds later: "Woo! My name is SARAH! Girl, I'm PROUD of how far you've come! Damn proud!"

Me, too.

*blush*

*curtsey*

Shadowboxing

2010-03-17T15:09:00.002-06:00

Last night, the setting sun blazed through the high windows at the gym like a scorching spotlight, highlighting the little corner where I wheezed and dripped and tried to keep up with the Bas Rutten workout (I gave up on the knees following every combination about three rounds into a seven-round doozy).

And my makeshift spotlight gave me a good look at my shadow, hooking and jabbing right next to me, shoulders heaving with every breath, puffy gloved hand shape wiping sweat from a monochromatic forehead. I fell in love with my shadow last night. My shadow was feminine and curvy, but strong. Very strong. And my shadow was beating the hell out of my punching bag's shadow.

Fifth or sixth round, Jason came over to hold the bag and watch my form for a few minutes.

"Damn, girl! Where'd that left hook come from?! You're doing it all right!"

I don't know where it came from (besides me), but I was super-proud of me and my shadow. We rocked it last night.

A Conversation

2010-03-10T21:44:00.002-07:00

Deb: "I just don't like her." ("Her" was a coach being interviewed on TV)
Dave: "Why?"
Deb: "I just don't."
Sarah: "Dave, you never ask a girl why she doesn't like another girl ..."
Sarah and Bree, in accidental unison: "The answer is always 'just because.'"
Dave: "Always?"
Sarah: "Always."
Ryan: "So cattiness is implied?"
Sarah: "Absolutely."

We're educating the world, one man at a time.

Meandering Monday (or: Another weekend, please)

2010-03-08T15:34:00.003-07:00

Take one down, pass it around ...

Three bottles of wine + friend + me + an ill-advised pizza = the kitchen floor, because it's so nice and cool, and it's the only thing in my kitchen that doesn't seem to be spinning or lurching. Friend's husband, upon picking her up to take her home, said that despite a rough night at work, seeing me on the floor like that (eyes covered, feet propped up on a chair, ice pack on my neck) pretty much made up for it. Glad to have improved your night, sir.

I am happy to report that the last time I got sick-drunk is still over five years ago. Curse you, Captain Morgan. Curse you.

Wine, you are still my friend. Just not in those quantities. And I love ice packs. And water.

And "Alice in Wonderland" was pretty wonderful. Frabjous Day, indeed.

Second time through

I'm re-reading the Twilight saga, and this time around, my recurring thought is: Seriously. How thick can this girl be? Other than that, I'm enjoying them. Again.

When men suffer from PMS

There's Boy A, and there's Boy B. One thinks the other doesn't like him. At all. Could be. I have no idea. But to listen to the whole thing being hashed out reminded me more of hanging out in the bathroom before school started in junior high, gossiping with my friends about who wasn't friends with whom that day. Hello again, 13 years old.

A Massacre in Hank's World

We run a Hank the Cowdog Series every week, titled "Hank the Cowdog and the Valentine's Day Robbery," and I have to make a conscious effort to type "Robbery" and not "Massacre." Such is my imagination, though, that I have to wonder how a Valentine's Day massacre would look on Hank's sleepy, safe little ranch ...

On the right foot ... and rather chubby

Haven't worn heels since Wednesday. Haven't worked out since Tuesday. Foot still feels sore, but not alarmingly sore, so I'll wrap it tonight and see how things go. I'm still wearing flat, safe, ugly shoes that don't make me any taller than I already am. We'll see.

Sadly, not working out has not equated to not eating lots of food (pizza ... wine ... pizza ... cheese .. chocolate ... Mexican food ... and so on ...), and now I'm worried. Need to get back into the swing of things. Or, rather, the step of things ...

Choose ice cream

2010-03-04T16:01:00.003-07:00

In school, to teach a principle of physics and weight distribution, we were posed a variation of this question:

Would you rather have a 300-pound man in wide, flat-bottomed shoes standing on your hand, or a 120-pound woman in spiked heels?

The correct answer, our teacher tried to assure us, was the 300-pound man in the flat shoes, because the weight would be more evenly distributed over a greater area versus a very small area of weight distribution with the lighter woman in the kind of shoes worn by the hussies our principal tried to teach us to not be.

... Did I mention that this was during a junior high history lesson and not my senior-year physics class? That should give you a fair idea of how on-track my history teacher/Bible teacher/science monitor/principal/school dictator was with everything he did ...

And this demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the education system. The correct answer is: I don't want anyone in any kind of shoes standing on my hand! WTF is wrong with you people?

Which brings me to last night's non-class at the gym.

First, I've never been so grateful to not have a class in my life. It's possible I've done something far from great to one of my feet, and the pause in physical brutality was much appreciated. Learning one choke hold, getting it right and making Joe tap and then spending the rest of the hour listening to Joe, Bradley and Dude Whose Name I Don't Know talk about some upcoming fights and about the joys of having Boone's Farm strawberry wine with your breakfast while camping was a preferable way to spend an hour.

But that hour started with those three otherwise intelligent guys and Sholty (who is also relatively intelligent) talking about whether they'd rather be kicked really hard in the nuts or be shot.

Believe it or not, a lengthy discussion comparing the pain of both injuries followed.

I, the lone girl and the person who doesn't want any person of any weight in any kind of shoe standing on my hand, wanted to shout: "The right choice is neither! What the hell is wrong with you guys?!? You're all college-educated, and you're debating your choice of being shot or being kicked in the nuts?!?"

Seriously. Any game of "Would You Rather" should always be won by the person who's smart enough to say: "Neither. Let's go get some ice cream."

In which I pretend it's spring and proceed to ramble

2010-03-02T20:55:00.006-07:00

You can laugh, but it's spring in my apartment. I couldn't handle it anymore, and the springtime curtains, bath things, etc., are up, thumbing their airy, pastel-colored nose at the snow and ice that still cover the playground beneath my window. Gone is the dark red shower curtain that made my bathtimes a shrouded, darkened thing of winter.

Light! Light is back, and I can see the color of my shampoo (white) and whether I really nicked my legs while shaving them (I did). Spring means (more) light, and something about light has been hard-wired into my brain to mean that happiness and lighter moods will soon come. They may actually come; they may not. But the fact that warmer weather and greener things are there, somewhere on the calendar, just waiting to burst forth, makes me believe that even if bad things happen, light and color and warmth and joy will be around to make them seem not so bad.

What is it about season, color, temperature and growth that does this for us?

Is it the tangible, visible, fragrant proof that after the deathly, colorless chill of winter, life can be young and green and warmly embracing again? Is it the memories of childhood and summer break, splashing in puddles, playing in mud, getting sunburned in the park and having breath-holding contests at the city swimming pool? Or is it simply just the science of more vitamin D and those blessed, happy endorphins from the excess sunshine we're suddenly absorbing and the exercise we're more induced to do outside, whether it be actual exercise or just walking down the street to a neighbor's house?

Maybe it's all of these things, combined with the anticipation we've learned to live in while subconsciously hoping for these things. Crap. I'm rambling.

Even MORE rambling

— Shut up, Bob.

We say it all the time. Every day. Every. Stinking. Day. Whatever it is that Bob thinks is hilarious, it's met with a resounding "Shut up, Bob!"

"He's gonna start thinking that's his name," I told Deb tonight. "He's gonna fill out a name tag, and it's gonna say, 'Hi! My name is Shut Up Bob.'"

"Kind of like the Bill Cosby thing," B said. "'For the first ten years of my life, I though my name was god****it ...'"

— Cliffs

Bob: "Are we close?"

Deb: "I don't know how close Sarah is."

Sarah: "I'm close to jumping off a cliff."

That's a typical night (for me) in sports.

— Meet Lisa

Tonight was leg kicks, and Jason was kind enough to point out where the "sweet spot" of a bundle of nerves is in the upper thigh, about a finger length below the hip bone.

It's only "sweet" if you're not the one getting kicked, and even at practice strength and speed, it frickin' hurts. And so, I've named my bruise "Lisa," in honor of the person who left me limping my way back to the locker room. That after a brutal cardio-intensive conditioning segment. Frickin' ouch.

— Shucks

It has to be said — a vase full of tulips delivered to your office on a Monday makes that Monday pretty stinkin' nice. Just sayin' ...

... and now a word from me about your sponsors

2010-02-26T15:42:00.002-07:00

I freaking love the Olympics. You already know that. I'm dreading Monday, when there will be no Olympics and we have to go back to life as normal. I may cry.

I also love commercials. The P&G ones, specifically. They (all) make me cry. Go, moms!

The NyQuil commercials make me laugh, and I wonder how much more you'd have to pay someone like Apolo Ohno to get him to agree to being filmed while snoring (or even faking it).

The snowball fight Coke commercial in the Olympic Village? Yeah! The Coke commercial with ALL the Olympic victory moments (Olympics, Paralympics and Special Olympics)? Tears ...

The AT&T commercial featuring Gretchen Bleiler? Absolutely.

The VISA commercials with Morgan Freeman's voiceover? Love them all, especially the Jamaican bobsled team spot. The Dan Jansen spot makes me cry, too.

What am I going to do when this is over?

It's been like vacation, when you get used to the radio commercials in a completely foreign environment, and then you're plunged back into your regular life — the life that doesn't have Disney characters or daily trips to IHOP, only now it's the daily life that doesn't have me cheering at my television when the U.S. is whooping Finland, doesn't let me find out just how addicting biathlon is, and doesn't give me a daily dose of some form of human bodies rocketing along tubes of ice at break-neck speeds.

It's a dull daily life facing us, folks, and it probably won't have commercials that make me cry and cheer on moms, either. I really don't want this vacation to end. Or its commercials.

What can you say?

2010-02-24T18:00:00.003-07:00

There's a Nolan-shaped hole in a lot of lives today.

As Eric said: Fuck cancer.

As Ingrid said: There is no cancer in Heaven, and thanks be for that.

As everyone else said: We love you, we're praying for you, we're crying, we're rejoicing that he doesn't hurt anymore, we're so sorry, we don't have a clue what to say ...

Please keep the Johnson family in your prayers.

n' stuff

2010-02-22T15:27:00.002-07:00

Aimee — It went really well. Good times, despite a totally classless eavesdropping move (others surveyed called it "lame" and "rude") by someone who ought to be smart enough to recognize a classless move and do the opposite.

For the record, "Percy Jackson" is a completely safe first-date movie, and Coal Creek, despite the suddenly close quarters, was a good place for getting-to-know-you chit-chat. Our intentions to watch the U.S.-Canada hockey game last night were thwarted when it turned out that the NBC I get via my antenna had no intention of airing the game (it was on MSNBC), so we were regaled instead with ski cross, ice dancing (which, it turns out, is one of his favorite Olympic sports ... go figure) and men's combined ... and the last thirty seconds of a pheomenal U.S. upset of a disappointed home team. USA!

I'm totally a fan of the dude who gets Bode Miller pumped up at the top of the race course.

"C'mon, Bode Miller! You can do it! You can DO it, Mister Miller! You're the MAN!"

I love that guy.

Sexy ugly

2010-02-18T22:46:00.003-07:00

There is nothing sexy about being at the gym and actually doing what you're supposed to do at a gym. Which is why I love my gym.

No one is there to strut or gawk or condescend. Attitudes aren't allowed, and there just isn't any time to strut or gawk or condescend. Plus, everyone is equally sweaty and gross and gasping and red in the face and trembling and unattractive. Everyone stinks, because everyone is sweaty. It's gym time, and we're there to bust out butts and learn how to fight. I love my gym.

I do not love recreation centers, where unreasonable social paranoia would take over and I would do something tame and safe, like the treadmill, for fear that I might sweat off the makeup that I deemed necessary because muscly meatheads were strutting around checkin' out the babes. I wanted to be a babe. Just not a sweaty babe.

God bless my sweaty, smelly, ugly gym.

Apparently, despite my four-day gym clothes funk, my sweatiness and my gaspiness, I've got ... well, I've got something.

Because I just got asked out. I just got told that it's taken him weeks to get up the nerve to tell me that he thinks I'm pretty. Me, with the smelly green shirt, the frizzy ponytail, the red, sweaty face and the gaspy, wheezy lungs.

God bless my sweaty, smelly, ugly gym. And my green shirt.

Peace and cheese

2010-02-17T14:50:00.003-07:00

In the midst of freaking out over sleeping in, trying to boil the macaroni, cube the Velveta, wash the dishes and feel a tad bit guilty over using shredded colby jack instead of cubing a half-pound chunk of colby while wondering whether this would be the magical day when my cheese sauce wouldn't turn my saucepan into a gooey, crusted, steel-wool-required mess, it hit me:

No one is going to take a bite of this stuff and say: "Sarah, you didn't cube your Velveta just right. And .... is that shredded colby jack I taste? Seriously? You could have put some effort into this ..."

Go ahead and laugh, but realizing that made my morning go a lot smoother, and I didn't feel guily about showing up at noon on the dot instead of the comfortable half-hour early, as had been suggested. I showered. I put on makeup. I packed my gym bag. And I did not perfectly cube the Velveta.

Peace sometimes comes in the form of imperfectly cut cheese.

(And this was the magical day when my saucepan did not have to be scoured with steel wool and elbow grease — joys abound)

Need to laugh? Talk to a 3-year-old.

2010-02-15T15:24:00.003-07:00

My friend's 3-soon-to-be-4-year-old loves to have "puzzle races" with her mom, and until last week, it was purely a race. Mommy does a bigger puzzle, and whoever finishes first is the winner.

My friend called last week. "She figured out how to cheat yesterday," she said.

"How's she do that?" I asked. "It's a puzzle race."

"She saw that I was winning, and she started grabbing pieces out of my puzzle and throwing them across the kitchen."

I don't care who you are — that's hilarious.

"What'd you do?" I asked, laughing pretty hard.

"I tried to tell her that she can't do that, that it's wrong and that I'll have to punish her if she does it again, but it was really, really hard to not laugh while I was saying it."

This same little girl has developed a sudden and inexplicable fear of using any toilet but the ones in her own house. "She won't even go at my parents' house," my friend said. "It's really bad at the Rec Center."

After one swimming lesson, the "I-don't-wanna" fit lasted from the time she left the pool 'til they were walking across the parking lot to the car.

Next swimming lesson: Lesson ended, and my friend asked her daughter if she needed to pee.

"Nah. I peed BIG-time in the pool," she shouted to her mom.

"I wanted to die," my friend said.

Finally, my friend's "deal with it" phrase is "tough toenails, kid." It started in junior high school, and it's stuck ever since. We all say it.

So she says it to her daughter when she complains about something.

"Tough toenails, kid."

"Mommy! Stop calling me 'tough toenails!' That's NOT my name!"

I don't need kids of my own. Not now. I get too much of a kick out of my friends' kids.

Toast to a jackass

2010-02-14T23:55:00.001-07:00

First, what I'm happy about on Valentine's Day:

I'm happy to have friends who will eat lasagna with me.

I'm genuinely happy for a best bud who has a date tonight.

I'm happy to have had the chance to spend yesterday with old friends.

Happy Valentine's Day.

But jackasses abound, and here's a toast to a doozy:

To the rat bastard who dumped my friend the freaking day before Valentine's Day: May you run out of gas — right next to an angry mama moose. May your coffee be bitter, may your steak be burned. May shampoo get in your eyes during your shower, may you nick yourself while shaving. May you have the slowest, grouchiest cashier at the grocery store. May everything you encounter in life be "difficult" and inescapable, so you finally have to strap your balls on and deal with something. May this be the loneliest, bitterest, most pathetic Valentine's Day you've ever experienced, living in your parents' basement and without one of the most amazing women God ever placed on the earth. May you get the kind of woman you truly deserve, because you never deserved my friend — you never even tried to deserve her.

The Twilight Zone

2010-02-12T22:50:00.002-07:00

My dad is on Facebook.

My DAD is on FACEBOOK.

Worlds are colliding, and my brother blames me.

"I invited him, like, a year ago," I said, a little bit hurt. There isn't fault to be assigned here, and it's not mine to claim.

"Mm-hmm."

"Stop it. You sound like Mom."

"Mm-hmm."

(sigh)

It's just bizarre to have this little Web world that I've created suddenly accessible by my parents. I have nothing shameful or embarrassing on there, just ... me. A me they don't usually see.

I think my mom pushed him into it, actually.

A couple years ago, I tried to show Facebook to her.

"So it's a dating site."

No ...

"I just don't understand why your brother is on here. He's married."

It didn't matter how I explained it. Facebook, in my mother's mind, was a dating site, and my married brother had no business being on there, keeping up with his friends from high school and college.

Except that now I keep telling her how my brother has updated this or that on his Facebook page, and that's sometimes the only way I know what's going on with him ... So I think she told Dad to "get on that Facebook thing and see what the kids are up to."

And if she told him to, then that's what he did. If she could find a way to get on Facebook through "the e-mail," or "the Google," she would.

Welcome to Facebook, Dad. Pretty soon you'll be texting. On the iPhone you'll want so you can have the Facebook app. And you'll "lol" at everything I write ...

Oh, Lord ...

Big brain, little brain

2010-02-09T15:02:00.004-07:00

(This started off as a random-everything post ... but this was all I had time/attention span to write. Sorry)

Barbara Walters is calling Jenny Sanford the Woman Who Didn't Stand By Her Man.

Uh, Babs ... that's not a man. That's a walking penis. And Jenny Sanford should have walked away the second the walking penis finished saying he didn't want to promise fidelity in their marriage vows. Walking penises do not deserve to have faithful, hard-working wives stand by them. They deserve to be abandoned. They deserve to have scathing tell-all books published about them. That's what walking penises deserve.

Going native

2010-02-06T20:34:00.002-07:00

In Canada, we dubbed Rachel "Sacajewea." Or: She Who Reads Maps Well. As long as we had Rachel with us, we didn't get lost. Remove Rachel, and you get Amber and Sarah stumbling through a forest at night, trying to find the beach and discovering they were on the wrong side of the sandbar from the stargazing party they were trying to meet up with ... Ah, Maine.

Tonight, my Indian Princess name is ... well, it's a choice, actually.

1) She Who Fits Three Pages of *$%&#$# Content Onto One Page With Much Less Grace Than You Might Expect

2) She Who Refrains From Strangling _________ With His Phone Cord

In which I view hoarding and panic to be signs of solidarity.

2010-02-05T20:31:00.004-07:00

My brother and his wife are stranded at a hotel in Blacksburg, where they travelled for a job fair that may or may not be cancelled by the Snowpocalypse that is burying the mid-Atlantic region.

I'm sure they're thrilled to have made the journey from southern North Carolina for such an event. I assured them that, according to news reports, there is no food to be had anywhere in their area and that two feet of snow would soon shroud them and that I was certain they weren't nearly as panicked as they ought to be.

After reading about how people lined up outside of Trader Joe's before it even opened and how stores up and down the Atlantic coast were out of everything from milk and bread to cheese and wine (I'm glad to see that some people suffer and ration in raised-pinkie style), I feel almost compelled to hit Wal-Mart after work tonight to stock up on things I don't need because the White Apocalypse is not heading my way. Not yet, at least. March and April are when we do it up big out West.

In other news, I had a dream about Lisa From AP Prep Scores. That's the only name I know her by, and she calls a few times a week to get high school scores that we don't have.

Here's how it goes down:

Phone rings. Sarah answers.

"Hi Sarah, it's Lisa with AP Prep."

"Hi Lisa — how's it going?"

"Good. Listen — I was wondering if you had the Rock River/(fill in a school name here) score ...?"

(Sarah cups her hand over the receiver and shouts over at Bob/Ryan/David: "HAVE WE HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THE ROCK RIVER GAME??")

Heads shake. No.

Sarah gets back on the phone: "Sorry Lisa — we usually don't get those 'til a day or so after the fact."

"OK. Thanks. Have a great weekend."

"You, too."

Lisa really is a nice, sweet person, and I don't think I could be paid enough to call all the rinky-dink newspapers in a region to get all the even rinkier-dinkier high school sports scores. I really admire her for doing it and for at least sounding as though she's smiling when I talk to her.

I hang up, and one of the guys (the same one, every time), sighs a big, throaty, gross sigh and says something along the lines of: "I don't know how many times we have to tell her that we don't get that information for a couple of days ..." And he does it trying to sound all pious about it.

"She's just doing her job. I wish more people were like that," I retort, feeling all pious myself and rather defensive of a very nice lady whom I've never met and probably never will meet. Doesn't matter. If everyone I dealt with on the phone was half as nice as Lisa With AP Prep Scores, I think I could be a little less cynical of people in general. Maybe.

So now my dream:

Scene: A derelict old building in downtown Gillette, which suddenly has all these great, old, narrow streets lined with towering brick buildings. And a great sushi place (none of this exists in Gillette). It's raining/hailing/ice storming so hard that windows are being shattered all over, and I'm trying to run down the streets, apparently from the house I grew up in, to get to the downtown area, passing a coworker's house that I broke into in a previous dream, when it was in another town (horrid tiny stairwells, by the way — like a dollhouse). I get downtown, and I don't want to take the alley, because in another previous dream, a creepy guy was there, and the alley took me to China, where I didn't know how to drive, and I wound up in a cheesy shopping mall with a bunch of obnoxious American tourists and Arab shopkeepers trying to get me to negotiate for jewelry I didn't need or want. So I duck into the first building I can, shattered windows and all, and it's a dormitory that doesn't belong to any college or university, and I lived in it in yet another earlier dream. So I'm navigating the nonsensical hallways and stairwells, flooded with water and hail, trying to get to Gillette Avenue. And when I get there, suddenly, I have to answer the phone, and it's Lisa With AP Prep Scores. She wants the Rock River score, and I shout down the street for someone who can get me the score. My pious, sighing coworker is there in a heartbeat, shouting at me and trying to grab the phone so he can scream at Lisa that we NEVER get those scores until at least the day after the game and to QUIT ASKING FERGODSAKES.

I really wish Gillette had a great sushi place.

And now, regarding reverse type:

Reverse type (sometimes) works in headlines. Big'uns.

Where doesn't it work? At all?

Blogs.

White-on-black blogs come dang close to inducing an occular migraine every time I try to read them. I swear they induce a little bit vertigo, too, if the reader stands up and tries to walk shortly after reading them.

In which Amber evades a switchblade-wielding would-be mugger

2010-02-01T20:25:00.010-07:00

The Best Bud and the Switchblade

For the love of God, Amber, move back to Wyoming.

The first mugging ... OK. He got your phone, you got away, you came home for the Best Worst Christmas Ever in one uncut, unbruised piece, and we gave thanks. But an SUV full of men pulling over and pulling out a switchblade as you run screaming after a taxi?

Eighth Street in Laramie has a complete absence of switchblades and SUVs full of thugs. Gillette. Sheridan. Thermopolis. Powell. Pick a town in Wyoming, that town's Eighth Street most likely has no switchblades or thuggy muggers who would wield them.

At least quit walking alone at night in D.C.

I'm workin' here!

In other news, co-worker B's up-til-4-a.m. eight months of work boiled down to going live with the Web site over the weekend, and it's fantastic. Two recurring reactions that got my attention:

1) "You have so much more local content!" OK.

2) "I hope you'll put up more local content." There will always be the cheapskate freeloaders who want everything in the print edition to be posted online for free, and we'll always get a chuckle when they say so. It's a great tradition. SSDD.

Utterly random

— It's odd how you can go from not seeing someone — almost ever — to suddenly seeing them everywhere you go in a single day. Like, everywhere. Stalk much? (I'm kidding. Maybe.) Which reminds me of the reporter who wrote about a store that was looking for "night stalkers" ... these things keep me employed.

— I forgot how spicy "spicy" can be. And I had no idea a soup broth could be that spicy. Rachel and I were a chorus of sniffles as we ate our Tom Yum soup. It was fantastic; spicy food just seemed like a really good idea before heading to an indoor ice arena to sit for two hours while watching the UW Club Hockey team slap a puck around. And now I'm hungry.

— I found something I thoroughly enjoy in my job. I told my boss about it, and she gave it to someone else. Seriously ...

— I'm in love. With http://www.overheardinthenewsroom.com/. Bit of an affair going on here.

Example:

Editor shouting to photo desk: "We need wild art!"
Intern: "Who the hell is Art, and is he buying?"

— I have a soft spot for trashy pop music, and I feel guilty sometimes for hitting replay on Cobra Starship on playslist.com. The stuff keeps me happy and looking like a head-bobbing idiot at work. I just can't stand to actually look at Lady Gaga. Put some actual clothes on. You, too, Pink.

— I can't understand how sporting events that are supposed to highlight the best of the best among athletes who have busted their asses and probably eat a scientifically calculated diet are commemorated among their fans with an all-you-can-eat food free-for-all. The Super Bowl. The Olympics. You name the event, people want to consume as much grease and cheese and alcohol as they can while sitting on their ever-expanding rearends and watching specimens of physical discipline and near-perfection fling their lean, muscled bodies across 60-inch flat-screen plasma HD televisions. America, you confound me. Yes, I'm laying out a Super Bowl-oriented food page.

In which guys don't appreciate girls' hair nearly enouh. And Tina Fey may be stalking me.

2010-01-29T23:12:00.006-07:00

Tina Fey goes through a lot of hair and makeup time and spends a lot of money to look just like me.

I'm serious.

This week is Doppelganger Week on Facebook (you can imagine the wild variations in the spelling of "doppelganger;" modern communication appals me). I don't know who comes up with this stuff, but it has brought to light the fact that Tina Fey is so obsessed with me that she tries — every day — to look exactly like me. I never knew she was even aware of who I am. Maybe she read my blog, too.

I've noticed the similarity this week especially, following my accidentally-too-short hair cut last week, which has married me indefinitely to my despised hair-styling tools and hair-styling products. I can't wait for the divorce.

I detest styling tools. I don't even like to admit that I own hair-styling products.

Hairdryers. Small curling irons. Medium curling irons. Extra-large curling irons. Those ugly little clips I have to use to keep my unstyled hair at wonky angles while I style the rest of it. Hot rollers. Foam rollers. Bristly rollers. Felt-covered foam rollers. Leave-in conditioner. Hair gel. Hairspray. Mousse. Heat-resistant hair-protection stuff. Glossing serum. Serum! For your hair! Diffusers. Concentrators. Picks; wide-tooth combs; fine-tooth combs; boar-bristle brushes; plastic-bristle brushes; round, ceramic-barrel, ouch-bristle brushes ...

Kill me.

I'm a wash-'n-go girl, and the styling time is brutal. I'm not saying I don't like having nice, sleek, pretty hair (and I like being Tina Fey's pretty twin), but sheesh.

Tina, I'll do you a favor and go back to the natural curl as soon as I can. I promise.

Watching a friend who is watching their child die

2010-01-23T17:51:00.003-07:00

This isn't my story to tell, but I cry or come close to it every time I think about it or talk about it.

My friend's 6-year-old son is dying of cancer — an inoperable tumor in his right lung — with maybe a few more weeks for his parents and sister to soak up as much time and love as they possibly can. Disney World? Check. Hot air balloon ride? Check. Thanksgiving and Christmas and rock climbing and Chuck E. Cheese with as much family as can be crammed into a house and then some? Check, check, check and check.

Enough time?

Never.

I can't wrap my head around this. The thought of losing a child has always terrified me in the prospect of ever being a parent.

How do you deal with it? My friend, all things considered, is pretty damn chipper. Nolan's in high spirits, they had a fabulous time at Disney World, the family is great, he was gonna bathe his kids in turpentine after the Chuck E. Cheese adventure, the kids are smiling/laughing/having a great time, Nolan is in relatively little pain and not yet on oxygen, and we are all forbidden from feeling sorry for any of them.

I don't know how to do that.

I don't know how to not feel sorry for this guy, his wife, their daughter, their parents and siblings who, in a very short amount of time, will have a Nolan-shaped hole in their lives. "Everyone, please — stop pitying us," Eric wrote shortly after the final, terminal diagnosis. "Our son is going to be in a better place, and we're grateful for having had the opportunity to know and love him." Something along those lines.

What do we pray for? We have faith in a God who has healed others; we also have stark, short-timed reality and pediatric hospice nurses staring us in the face. Do we pray for healing? More time? Or just comfort for Nolan and peace for his family — knowing that smiling little boy soon won't hurt any more, that it won't be a struggle to breathe, that his fourth fight with the obscenity that cancer is will ultimately be the end of the fight?

I know God is big, that His peace surpasses anything we can understand, and that in the midst of roaring, soul-shaking storms, His is the small, calming voice that comes on a whisper of a breeze.

I know that.

My faith, though, feels so small -- like a whisp of smoke that will be obliterated in that raging wind. How do I offer such a fragile faith to God on behalf of my friend and his sick little boy?

So in my tiny, feeble-feeling faith, I'm asking you please pray for peace and comfort — for Eric, Beth, Claire, Nolan and everyone who loves them and is hurting now and will be hurting for a long time.

2010-01-23T00:41:00.001-07:00

I opted for C) Earl Grey tea, my iPod & cleaning house. My downstairs neighbor has to hate me.

In which hope could die. But there's always wine.

2010-01-22T21:15:00.004-07:00

Another Poll:

Is it better to:

A) Suspect/Know/Be reminded and, in turn, be hurt, angry, more hurt, more angry, and very tempted to drink wine — a lot of it — call your best bud, cry on the phone, rant against men and stupid romance, journal a dozen or so tearstained pages and watch the cheesiest chick flick you can find in your pile of ultra-cheesy chick flicks?

OR

B) Remain in blissfully ignorant hope, running the very real risk that in the future — near or distant — your sappling foolish hope will be mercilessly stepped on and crushed to cruel oblivion, flinging you to option A anyway?

Man, it's a good thing I invested in all those chick flicks. What would I do ...? Oh yeah. The wine. *Phew*

And ... GO!

* * * *

Results of the previous poll — all two of them (and you two totally rock — always remember that) — indicated that obnoxiousness is a result of low self-esteem on the part of The Obnoxious, which indicates that maybe I misstated my question, or maybe it really is low self-esteem and I'm just missing something here. I wasn't talking bullies or jackasses, though. Just people who really enjoy being the loudest, the most "in the know," the always-right person, at all costs, no matter how wrong they are. Those kinds of people. They drive me nuts.

Bradley, I'm sorry

2010-01-19T19:38:00.002-07:00

Tonight, I learned — the mortifying way — why guys wear cups not only for their fights, but for practice as well.

Dear God.

Bradley was holding shields for us to practice kicks — leg kicks first (I ROCK leg kicks!), followed by push kicks, which I'm very near rocking. Except ...

I misjudged the distance. Bradley was too far out, my foot went too low (you aim for the the solar plexus), and ...

Now I know why.

I didn't hurt him, but I was horrified (it didn't help that I pretty much fell into him in the aftermath). And then I went and kicked his mouthguard out of his pocket. I couldn't look him in the eye the rest of practice.

Dating 'taken' people and coveting someone else's boxing gloves

2010-01-18T22:32:00.003-07:00

We discuss interesting, important and sometimes completely irrelevant things in our office. We're expensively educated young adults. It's what we do best (the irrelevant part, that is).

Today's panel topic was dating/hitting on married people. Or people who wear fake rings to avoid being hit on. Or dating someone who dumped/is dumping their current wife/girlfried/toe-warmer for the oh-so-much-better YOU. Or people who don't bother looking for a ring. Or people who ONLY hit on married/seemingly married people. It takes all kinds.

I told you it was important.

"Why would you date someone who dumped someone else for you?" I asked. "Seriously. You know it's a matter of time 'til you're out in the cold."

I was right, of course, and was greeted with a roomful of nodding heads - bobbleheads, the Boomerang edition.

Seriously. When self-esteem seems to be at an all-time low anyway, why would you set the egg timer on yours? Ding! Time's up! Refill your antidepressant and get your therapist on speed dial.

In other news, I went running last night. At least, I told myself it was running. It probably looked more like a painful, 27-minute lurch, but really, it was running.

I hadn't been running since Thanksgiving weekend, and all things considered, I'm dang proud of myself. I maintained 9-minute laps throughout (that's, um ... that's really good. For me. Spare me your judgment and derisive snickering). For a two-month break, that's phenomenal. I also discovered that the key to avoiding middle-of-the-night-running hypothermia is to continue running, and to not walk two laps afterward. Some lessons are just learned the hard way, and my hands have just now thawed out to the point where I can a) do my job and b) type this rambling epistle to you all.

In other, other news, I despise squatting/jumping/squatting/dying across the gym while clutching a medicine ball as though the extra weight was going to do me a favor. Jason, if you ever read this, that may be the exercise I despise the most. It definitely beats partner leg-overs in my most-hated column of exercises. And you made us do two rounds of it. I came close to chucking my medicine ball on you while you did stomach crunches next to us. I just didn't have the strength left to chuck anything at anyone when it came down to it.

Kim is rockin' some fantastic new purple gloves, and I'm completely envious. However, with my pink gloves and purple shirt and her purple gloves and pink-and-black shirt, we were the most color-coordinated pair throwing mits tonight. Girls totally rock this boxing/MMA stuff. According to Annie, we rock ab work, too. ("Those guys just totally wimp out halfway through the (leg lifts) round, Sarah. And you were still going ...") We totally rock.

Enter Stage Life

2010-01-18T22:02:00.002-07:00

The problem with taking dance classes and loving musicals (i.e. "Annie") as a kid was that you just expected people to burst into song and dance in the middle of the street/grocery store/park/school/church/whatever.

And you were sorely disappointed when these things didn't happen ...

I remember distinctly choreographing in my head how, say, a day at the park should play out, and it involved lots of manly, softshoe-shooshing men leaping and twirling their suspendered way over picnic tables and around big trees while girls, wearing appropriately frilly dresses and harmonizing perfectly, would get swept and swished and twirled about. Life, in my imagination, was a beautiful, song- and dance-filled thing that came with pastel-colored dresses and perfectly curled hair. Think "Oklahoma!" here.

Nothing, I have learned, ever goes according to plan, and perhaps I should have been committed by age 10.

No one ever sings or dances in the park, and I have yet to get twirled about a picnic table while wearing a pink dress with the flared skirt and tulle flounce underneath, singing about something that rhymes with "squirrels."

Sadness.

In the meantime, I'm going to go home and sing ♫Food, Glorious Food♫ to my microwave while it heats up something yummy. I may dance with a kitchen chair while I'm at it.

Sundry Saturday

2010-01-16T21:18:00.002-07:00

It just now struck me how "sundry," out of the corner of my eye, looks like "laundry," and it reminded me that I really need to do some sundry laundry.

Indulging in free wi-fi at Hastings. "Why not Coal Creek?" Jessi asked.

Well, my friend, I can't get up and browse books and music and movies when I get tired of browsing the Interwebs and a coffee menu at Coal Creek. I have gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, and I'm in the mood for some new tunes ...

So here I sit, iPod unsociably plugged into my head, phone charging post-parental contact, green tea latte (with added extra green, just so you know it's a GREEN tea latte) in hand. Life is ... well, it's not bad.

This week has been pretty fantastic, actually.

My dad keeps his job and doesn't have to go on strike.

My brother was accepted to medical school and, we hope, will be entering Navy OCS in May, which means a trip to Rhode Island in June for his graduation. For just such an occasion, I bought the most fantastic mistakenly found dress today. It had been left in the fitting room by an unwittingly benevolent Someone Else, and I found it among the unwanted jeans, skirts, dressed and shirts left by previous patrons. It fit perfectly, it was priced perfectly, and in front of the register was a matching, perfectly fitting, perfectly priced pair of shoes. Sometimes, God just smiles at you, and you can't help but smile back.

So I did.

I also got another fantastic dress for a potential February trip, and whether it gets worn then or for some other function, I'm glad just to have it. It was my day for dresses and shoes. Three dresses, two pair of shoes, $30, priceless feeling.

Getting excited for May - Jessi and I spent a good hour planning out whale-watching and lake kayaking. Jessi wants to avoid moose; I want to see one. Just one! At a distance would be fine. I want to eat fresh-caught salmon, which she says is a requirement. And while I want to expereince just a little bit of the flannel-clad, tree-felling, unshaven backcountry taste of Alaska, I don't want to get kidnapped by it, either, so we're still debating how to best do that ... And even though she lives there, it'll be like an Alaskan vacation for Jessi, too. Super-duper excited.

Perhaps it's time to do that music/book/movie browsing.

Happy Weekend.

Favorite. Most painful. Whatever.

2010-01-14T21:23:00.003-07:00

(in progress)

(originally posted on the other blog you can't read ...)

Six-foot-tall punching bags and dummies named Bob
Left hooks and right straights that make your hands throb
Push yourself harder until the bell rings
These are a few of my most painful things things

Pink-colored hand wraps and pink gloves that match
Learning to parry and learning to catch
Jumpropes that smack your toes and make them sting
These are a few of my most painful things

Coaches who tell you to "Move! Bust your asses!"
Sweatdrops that fling off your nose and eyelashes
Leg kicks and body kicks that lead to some dings
These are a few of my most painful things

When the round ends
When my lungs wheeze
When I'm feeling faint
I simply push on through my most painful things
Then it's time for a three-minute plank

Poll

2010-01-13T14:58:00.001-07:00

Why do some people take very obvious delight in being obnoxious?

I want feedback.

And ... GO!

Yours vs. mine

2010-01-11T17:39:00.003-07:00

"Sarah, why do you let it bother you so much? It's her problem; not yours. Relax. Let it go."

It was a much-needed, very frank conversation with a coworker about a situation I was dealing with some time ago. I asked for an honest opinion, I got it ... and a bit more. I like this coworker's perspective and his willingness to tell me like he sees it.

And he was right. It was the other person's problem that I was allowing to rub me the wrong way, and it bothered the hell out of me; like someone else's itchy sweater. I don't need a better T-shirt; I need to quit letting my arms itch every time I look at your sweater.

It's a new mantra: "It's your problem, not mine. Yours, not mine ... not mine ..." I have enough of my own issues; I don't need to get all riled up by other people's personality problems.

Today, in another conversation with the same coworker and my boss, I could hear him getting ready to tell me the same thing about a new situation: "It's their problem; not yours. Let it go."

Let go. Good song. Better advice.

So many things are someone else's problem, and I let them affect me in absolutely the wrong way. Yes, it needs to be addressed; but it doesn't need to wear away at an otherwise level-headed approach to ... well, to anything. Work. Dating relationships. Family. Neighbors.

So many times, I could (and should) just step back, breathe and say: "It's your problem, not mine," and then just let it go after giving it only the attention that's necessary to deal with it, rather than getting immersed in it (and sometimes nearly drowning in it). There really aren't a lot of things worth getting that worked up over.

Your problem. Not mine.

Pain in the neck. Seriously

2010-01-05T20:26:00.003-07:00

If I ever marry, he'd better be a damn good masseuse. S'all I can say.

It's like a vise has been tightening across my shoulders and up my neck for the past two weeks. I'm thinking that repeatedly hefting a 13-pound medicine ball over my head for three minutes probably won't have helped anything by the time tomorrow rolls around. Oy.

Good freaking grief. Relief — stat!

Puny (Or: Maybe you shouldn't mix Benadryl and Zyrtec and Tylenol Cold after all)

2010-01-03T13:49:00.004-07:00

It hit Christmas Eve, and it hasn't left.

The Creeping Crud.

It started in my chest. Moved to my throat. Then to my head/sinuses. Back to my chest. And then the full whammy - all of it at once. Lucky me. An allergy attack added its own special flair somewhere in there.

For a week and a half, I've been snuffling, sneezing, coughing, rasping, watering, wheezing and searching for the right drug combination ... without luck and with a bit of an overdose high. Happy holidays.

After a week of respiratory hell at work, I crawled into bed Friday night and crawled out sometime Saturday afternoon. Never left my apartment. Actually, except for a shower, I never left my pajamas.

Defrosted my freezer. Typed up that letter. Planned out some healthier eating. Watched two installments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended editions). And then crawled back to bed.

Repeating the antisocial behavior today so far. For the record, I love these pajamas. Kristie definitely knows me.

I feel rather human today. Able to breathe, coughing less, minus the aches, sneezes and watery eyes. Hallelujia. Aiming for a drug-free Sunday. Perhaps some grocery shopping. I need groceries for the freezer that suddenly has room now that 50 pounds of ice have been removed.

I'm sad that a good weekend was wasted under self-imposed house arrest, but I'm glad to have the feeling of walking death finally (I hope) behind me. Perhaps next weekend ...

Off the subject, weather.com's forecasted "light snow" has more than lightly blanketed everything outside and is still fluttering down. At least the wind seems to be at bay.

2009, you rocked. And sucked. And rocked some more ...

2009-12-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is a bit disorganized. Like me.

I have a letter that better sums up the year, but true to fashion, it's still in progress in a spiral-bound notebook. And there it will likely stay until I'm looking for a sheet of paper sometime in July and remember that I intended to send out a rather newsy letter to all my friends and family six months earlier. Oops.

Know me, know my flaws. Love me ... you got it. They come with me.

Here's my scatterbrained summary in the meantime.

Music

I bought a lot of music this year. A. Lot. I've loved the music of 2009 (even if it actually came out before 2009)

Some new faves (in some cases, what they remind me of):

- Linkin Park (Minutes to Midnight, Meteora, Hybrid Theory and Reanimation)
"Shadow of the Day" was on my iPod quite a bit while I was driving to meet Jessi in Thermopolis, all the snow and fog and prettiness and tension of driving in Wyoming in spring. I also would listen to that track on repeat, lying on my living room floor, likely having a pity party ...

- Radiohead (In Rainbows)

- Staind (14 Shades of Gray)

- the Twilight soundtrack

- Muse (Black Holes and Revelations)
Being pretty much stranded in my apartment in April during a snowstorm, except when I went to visit Kristie and Geoff at their hotel, because they were stuck in Laramie after the Elton John concert. Good times - horrid roads and all. Cabin fever makes some stir-crazy girls dance around their apartment while Windexing all their windows to "Starlight" ...

- Red (Innocence and Instinct and End of Silence)
Driving to Gillette for Brooke's surprise birthday party, caught in a downpour and very nearly struck by lightning on Highway 59.

- Trapt (Trapt and Through the Pain)
Lonely, pissed off and running in the park.

- Three Days Grace (One X and Three Days Grace)
If you need angry, move-your-butt music to heft/toss/pass a medicine ball to, jump over and crawl under a person to, do a bazillion situps/leg lifts/legovers to or whack the heck out of a punching bag to, then this is your stuff. Blood, sweat ... more sweat (no tears allowed). Aaaaannnnd ... time. Next round ...

- Owl City (Ocean Eyes)
I first heard "Fireflies" while driving to Fort Collins for retail therapy shortly after the last breakup. Three-ish minutes of on-the-road happy.

- Imogen Heap (Hide and Seek)
Leaving Camden, Maine, for the almost-all-night drive through Maine and New Brunswick.
Chillaxing in my living room, grateful that Pandora nudged me in Imogen's direction.

MuteMath (MuteMath)
Driving up Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor, Maine, to watch the sunset.

Anberlin (Cities)
Summertime.

In and out of like. Spite, too, sometimes.

Attempted romance this year ranged from a couple of much-needed, no-strings-attached snogs to gee-whiz jackasses to short-lived heart flutteries and newfound heartache. Bring on the new year. I'm ready.

Leavin' on a jet plane. And a train. And a car.

Vacation, I love you. Prince Edward Island, I miss you. Maine, your blueberries, lobster and harbors were more than lovely. Washington, D.C., thank you. Philadelphia, cheers. And Charlotte, gracious host. Laramie for the too-short family reunion, gracias. And Gillette for the much-needed visits home, I miss you sometimes; others, I'm glad we have some space.

Look out, Alaska. I'm on my way.

Between the covers ... of a book

Clearly, I read the Twilight saga. And I liked it — without apology. Other printed work that took up my spare time:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Till We Have Faces (for at least the fourth time); The Hobbit;
The Lord of the Rings (all of them); The Harry Potter series - again; Wuthering Heights (after which I decided to not read Tess of the D'urbervilles - I can only handle so much depression); Founding Mothers; Jane Austen (by Carol Shields); The Seven Dials Mystery; A Christmas Carol (the original); Portions of Got Fight? (usually while blocking an aisle at Hastings and Barnes & Noble as I sit on the floor and proceed to laugh my head off - it makes for enjoyable reading, as long as you're not too greatly offended by language and tales of sexual escapades past); Still Waters (I think that's what it was called. It was by Tammi Hoag).

Movies

I'm not a movie theater-going gal too much these days, but I went to my first-ever midnight showing of a movie when "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" graced our fair city, and Brooke and I braved the disdain of our clearly more mature friends when we saw "New Moon" over Thanksgiving weekend. I enjoyed the first "Transformers" movie ... I had no clue what was going on in the second. I cried watching "Up," and I loved "Twilight" (save your rolled eyes for someone who cares). "Defiance" was AMAZING, and "Slumdog Millionaire" has no descriptor worthy of it. Freaking amazing. We'll try that. My parents treated me to "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" for my birthday, and it was fun. Good one to see with the folks.

I'll hit you. No, really — I will

The apprhension of a local camera-toting pervert drove me to do something more than scream and blow a panic whistle if I ever found myself in a moment of need.

I found myself signing up for three months at a mixed Martial arts gym ... and LOVING it. Almost everything about it. Six months later, I'm still there, I'm working on some fantastic abs, and my brother has banned me from play-punching him. Because it hurts. I love my shoulders, and I crave compliments on my legs almost as much as I crave chocolate. Yeah. I work hard on those legs. They ARE nice, and I don't mind if you agree with me.

Sundry

"Chicago" in Denver with Fuzzy. Except for getting a little bit lost on the way home (At least someone smart brought their Garmin navigation system ... and it wasn't me), it was a really, really good night.

30. 'Nuff said. Tears have been cried, relative peace has been found.

Pink. Boxing. Gloves. (hearts!)

The Best Worst Christmas Ever.

Birthday time with the brother (his birthday).

First-ever bikini. Not an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny one, though. I'm not delusional.

First-ever snowshoeing trek. F-U-N.