I was an extra in someone else's movie today.
It was a heart-wrenching scene, worthy of a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. It was a gray morning, clouds covering the sky except for those tiny hints of blue; a storm threatening to stay or perhaps blow past. A hint of wind, too, tiny yellow and orange leaves whispering around the couple's ankles as their intense conversation continued. Her eyes were red, makeup smeared as she silently sobbed. Her arms folded, jacketless in the hopes that the storm would indeed avoid this section of the Wasatch foothills, her purple dress shifting with the slight breeze. He was wearing a jacket, white, with one hand held up to his forehead in frustration, disappointment, shame, or any other of a myriad of emotions appropriate to the dramatic scene. A single tear leaked from the corner of his eye, and he was shaking his head in denial of her words or perhaps the entire situation. Who knows what their tragedy was about; this scene is as unique to each pair of lovers as it is ubiquitous to the genre. The end, too, is unclear; will this be Hollywood-style where all conflicts are eventually settled and the couple begins their happily-ever-after as the end credits roll? Or will it be one of those depressing Chinese movies where they each marry someone else and in the end everyone is unhappy or dead? The eventual conclusion cannot be predicted from this brief scene: two people deep in conversation, standing in the gray campus courtyard as the leaves swirl around their feet.
And then there was Ellyn, stomping along on her way to class and valiantly suppressing the urge to stop between the two and say, "Heeeyyyy, wassup!!!"
I deserve some kind of award for not doing that.
But really, the whole situation got me thinking. Here was the succession of my thoughts:
First, "This scene would be an interesting start to a blog post."
Then, "How often are we the extras in someone else's movie and we don't even realize it?"
Follow-up, "And how often do we have important extras in our own movies and we don't even notice them?" (the above is based on the assumption that I am indeed important)
Those people didn't even know I existed. Rightly so; whatever they were discussing was obviously very important and who was I but a random girl walking by on her way to class? Who was I to interrupt their important conversation? No one, that's who. Simply an extra, a random passerby who managed to be on screen for one second. A budding actress who points herself out to her family and friends when they go see the movie in theaters. "That's me," I say, pointing to the screen and trying (but failing) to contain my excitement to a stage whisper, "I'm a movie star."
But I'm not a movie star. I'm just the back of a head moving past as the camera focuses on Channing Tatum and whoever he's starring with this time.
And at the same time, who are they? They're just some people having a teary discussion outside the JSB as I continue the narrative of my movie-life: the everlasting saga of how I don't want to go to Economics again but somehow I still find myself walking through the courtyard. They were just some people standing in the way of my trajectory to class; he was the random guy in a white jacket who I almost bumped into as the glide camera moved with me towards the building doors, my face a mask of resignation. When he goes to see my movie with his friends he's a little more subtle in his excitement, but he still points out the familiar white jacket with secret pride. The people come to see me in all my eyebrow-furrowed glory, but little did they know that they witnessed the screen debut of a certain young man in a white jacket.
Who am I kidding, the arguing couple's movie is a lot more interesting than How Ellyn Didn't Skip Economics (Today). Nobody would go to see that movie (uhh yeah that's an awful title), but the other movie was sold out a week in advance. Pssh, whatever, that's just because Channing Tatum was in it. Biceps sell. Not bitter.
I've recently had the experience of having a supporting role in the rom-com of someone else's life: my roommate McKenna's. We ended up sharing an apartment essentially by accident; the room selection process was blind, the only indicator to the personality of your future roommate being a brief questionnaire about your music preferences and what time you go to bed. Three beds in the apartment; I picked my room because the one bed already filled said she liked classic rock. I'm not sure what McKenna's thought process was as she chose the final bed; let's just say that none of us ever go to bed at 11 like we answered we would. And there is a little too much rap in the apartment for my tastes.
The future of our relationship could be thus: at the end of this year, we part ways and never speak again because we're so sick of one another. Or, we briefly split as I go on a mission and she stays here and when I get back we become roommates again because we're the only people who can stand to live with one another. Either way, we become the people that in twenty years we tell our respective children about, the iconic "I once had a roommate..." stories that hopefully don't end up with anything illegal happening. There are of course other options, but from the intensity of our personalities right now I am only seeing the two above possibilities as the conclusion to our story.
But we're not at the end of our story yet. No, we are smack dab in the middle and it's a bit rough sometimes. Like any rom-com that involves a dramatic leading lady and the supportive/mildly sarcastic/a bit hermit-y friend, there are ups and downs. There are tears from both drama and laughter, there are passive-aggressive arguments about cleaning up your dishes, there are awkward family pictures taken at one o'clock in the morning. There is a plethora of boy drama, there's stress about school and work and the future and the present, there's giving each other advice and being each other's moms in both good and bad ways. It's a huge giant roller coaster, but you know what? It's fun.
That's right. Life is fun. College is fun. Roommates are fun. It's wonderful to be involved and stressed and learning and cooking and sleep-deprived and heartbroken and hopeful and exhausted all at the same time. Life is short, you know? I have no idea if we'll still be friends in twenty years. What I do know is that we are friends now, and that it is important to treasure that relationship and make the most of it while we are here. It doesn't matter that we may just be brief characters who have made an appearance early in the movie, and that the best is yet to come. What matters is that we made a difference to the scene in which we appeared. Besides, the character who shows up for only a brief scene near the beginning is nearly always the one who ends up committing the murder.
Umm.
And so I am left to ponder the complexity of the lives around me and the silken-thread links between my life and theirs. We brush past each other, sometimes literally, as with White Jacket Boy, and sometimes metaphorically, as in the continuing saga of my roommate adventures. We meet new people, some whose contact with us is only a brief paragraph like the guy I talked to twice in Archaeology and thought we might end up being friends but now haven't seen for a month, and some who stay more permanently like the Russian girl I met in seventh grade who I thought was vaguely interesting but I don't know if we'll be friends and is now my favorite person to talk to on the phone. There are sisters, there are crushes, there are best friends, and then there are people who you walk next to for five minutes because you're headed to the same building and you're trying really hard to not to be creeped out but also not be creepy and you're thinking things like "Are you my soul mate?" and "Please don't kill me" but then they turn a corner and you can't decide whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Each has their own movie, and each has made an appearance in yours. Some people are the comic relief and some provide the deep heart-to-heart, plot-forwarding conversations. Some instigate life-changing realizations and some simply brush shoulders with you on the way to class. It is up to you, to them, and to God's plan to determine what role you will play in their movie, and what impact they will have on yours. It is time for us all to decide who we are.
Wow, that all sounded really inspirational.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Conclusion: Growing up doesn't necessarily make you smarter.
I walked into the police department today.
No, I wasn't in handcuffs. You probably already figured where that one was going. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting on my brief tour of the Provo City Center/Police Department today. Probably something out of an episode of Castle: busy people, phones ringing, some goofing off and a fair bit of good honest detective work. Maybe a couple of perps. Dirtbags? People in handcuffs. Not me, though. I'm a law-abiding citizen.
What I was not expecting for sure, though, were dark windows. Silence. The absence of ringing, talking, or any semblance of goofing, on or off.
Why did I visit the darkened doors of the Provo Police Department today, you ask? Well, I'm a college student. That by itself is not sufficient reason to visit the precinct, I'm aware, but it does allow one to infer several pieces of information about me. I go to college. Hence, I go to campus every day, or at least every day I have class, assuming I actually attend class (I do). Hence, I must somehow find a way to get to campus every day. Since I am a Good Student and there are many responsibilities vying for my time, it follows that I would also like to get to campus every day in as little of it as possible. Not following that line of logic but still relying on the basic fact that I am a college student, one can also infer that I am likely poor. Hence, I would like to save as much gas as possible in order to save as much money as possible in order to be able to eat.
Combine all of this information with the knowledge that BYU requires every bike ridden on campus to hold a Provo City Bike License and one can conclude, by very good inductive or deductive reasoning (man I can never remember which is which), that I walked into the Provo City Center today to register my bike and obtain a license so that I may park my bike (with a nifty bike lock that has letters instead of numbers so that I just have to remember a word instead of a 4 digit code to unlock it, "I can remember four numbers! What was the third one?") on BYU Campus legally and in relative peace of mind, safe in the knowledge that I am a law-abiding citizen and that should my bike be stolen, it will have been registered with the Provo Police Department and be tracked down with great efficiency and not taken to the basement of the Alamo.
At least, that was my intention when I locked my bike up on a rack in the shade near the underground parking garage of the City Center (using that nifty lock) and made my way upstairs to find the police department. The universe had other plans.
I had ridden my bike to campus that day and parked it in a covered rack area in the Helaman Halls housing complex. I'm a good planner, you see, and had decided that after my 10 o'clock class I would eat lunch at the Cannon Center then ride down to the Police Department and register my bike, which would make up for my slightly-illegal parking of the bike on campus before it had actually been licensed. During the interim of when I parked my bike at 8:30 and when I finished lunch at 11:30, I completely forgot where I had actually put it and so spent a few minutes wandering around, retracing my steps to find my bike. It worked this time, and by avoiding traffic and riding in the wide shoulders of the Provo roads I was able to make it to the City Center safe and sound. I even wore my helmet the whole time. Look what a good citizen I am.
And so I eventually found my way to the main floor of the center. It smelled like asbestos and was probably built in the 70s, but I was willing to overlook those faults in order to accomplish my goals. No offense to the 70s. I paused at the top of the stairs. To the left I saw directions to several departments of the City Center. Community Development? Irrelevant to me right now. Information, though... I may come back to that. To the right were similar signs. Mayor's Office, City Council... Aha! Police Department. I remembered reading online that I must go to the police department to obtain my bike license. Therefore, to the right I turned and began my trek towards future legal bike parking. And walked. And walked. Man that was a long hallway.
Along the way I passed several doors to which had been affixed the days and times of Police Department operations. Monday thru Thursday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. Perfect, I thought. I'm here at 12:15 on Friday. It's right in the middle of their working hours; I suppose some people might be at lunch but it would be silly to have everyone go to lunch at once. I'm sure I can find someone to help me obtain my license, and then we can all be on our merry way.
Can you see where this is going.
Nearly all the doors also hold Provo's vaguely recent new logo, which looks a bit like the Obama logo, and the slogan "Welcome Home." I am a bit confused and offended by this. How much time do they want me to spend at the police department? If everyone considered it their home the police would have way too much work on their hands. Plus it's not the most comfortable of abodes; I'm sure I could find a bed somewhere but man that asbestos would get to me. Eventually I figured they were welcoming me home to Provo, not the police department. Alrighty then.
As I walk along the lengthy hallway I realize that instead of a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, the building is getting increasingly darker. Doors are shut on blackened offices and there isn't a soul in sight. I check the hours of operation again; I'm still between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm, so they can't possibly be closed. Maybe they're all out to lunch? The possibility seems slim, but there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for why the place appears to be shut down. I do see one lit room behind a door behind another door that says "POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY" and I'm too chicken to check it out. Well then. I guess I'll go to Information and see if they can solve the mystery for me, or at least give me my bike license. I begin the trek again.
A little before the point at which I had originally decided to turn right I discovered another way to go. This hallway bore the label "Customer Service" and looked vaguely promising. As I stood there puzzling and smelling the asbestos a lady paused on her way to the bathroom, the first living soul I had seen in the center so far.
"Can I help you find something?" she asked.
"I just need to register my bike," I replied, trying not to whine.
"It's just down this hallway, turn to the right and you'll be right there."
Hallelujah! At last my hard work paid off. I was finally a step closer to parking my bike in legal security. I tried to push the pull door and eventually made it inside the Customer Service area, where I awkwardly couldn't figure out where I was supposed to stand in line but eventually made it to the Customer Service Representative and told her, this time really not whining, that I needed to register my bike. She handed me a form and I began to fill it out.
I was almost immediately stumped. They want me to describe my bike, for obvious identification purposes, but I didn't know the answer to half the questions, and didn't know what the other half even meant. What are ram handlebars? How big are the wheels even? I could answer the color questions pretty well but got stuck on whether I should put the trim as being gray or white. Desk Lady was no help, so I did my best and handed her the form completed with the questions to which I knew the answers. She shrugged and seemed willing to accept what I had, but paused.
"I'm sorry, we're going to need the manufacturer's serial number."
Now, I knew that such information was likely going to be required. My older brother had told me about his experience registering his bike in Idaho: he didn't have his bike with him when he filled out the form and put 8675309 as the serial number. I was not going to stoop to such low actions; my jaunt through the darkened police department really made me reevaluate my life and no way was I going to lie on a form that was going to stay in police records forever. That's akin to putting the handcuffs on myself, I figured. No deception for me today; I was simply going to have to find that serial number. I already tried, by the way. I really did.
So I sighed a bit, tried to pull the push door, and made my way back down the asbestos stairs to the secluded rack where I had parked my cute yellow bike with the gray and white trim. The sun had moved by now, of course, and my bike was no longer in the shade. Brilliant. I looked around the frame for a while. No numbers. A couple of stickers, and a bit more dirt had accumulated than I had heretofore realized, but nothing resembling a serial number. I used my nifty internet-capable phone to solve my problem; the search "whee do you find a serial number on a bike" was sufficiently understood and I was presented with a diagram of possibilities as to where the serial number would most likely be. I checked each location; nothing. I went around to the other side of the bike and checked again; still nothing. On the verge of giving up, I finally decided to check once more; the underside of the pedal crank was the mostly likely place for the number to be, according to the website, and was also the hardest place for me to see from my position (namely, right side up). Well fine. I got down on the ground, situated myself to best view the numbers in my now upside-down state and Success! I had found the prize. I memorized the number, struggled to my feet, and was now ready to face the world with the information necessary to obtain a real-live bike license.
Back upstairs I went to the other Customer Service Representative to complete the process. I still hadn't figured out how big the wheels were, but the computer wouldn't let her finish it without the information so I just guessed something. This whole thing had already taken far too long. The license cost $1.00, so I handed her my debit card (yeah, I know it was only a dollar, but I still needed to pay my friend back with the only cash I have and remember how I'm a poor college student?) and surfed Facebook for a bit while she was finishing up. Soon enough she gets my attention.
"It says the serial number does not exist."
What.
She continues. "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to finish this without the serial number. A police officer can stamp a serial number on it in order for it to be registered, but the department is closed on Fridays. You could call our Non-Emergency Dispatch and have a police officer meet you here in order to stamp it, but otherwise you'll have to come back on Monday."
Are you. Kidding me. Well, no way was I going to call a police officer just to get my bike registered. Do I even really need to license it? It sat on campus all morning and didn't get bothered, besides how are they supposed to know it's my bike if it's not even registered? This whole process is monstrous intolerable.
This story is getting long enough. I told her I'd come back Monday, got the door right this time, and went back downstairs, forgetting to grab one of the watermelon taffies sitting in a bowl on her desk. My bike's seat was now almost unbearably hot. On a whim I decided to once more check to see if I had gotten the number right and sat back down on the ground again. Hold on a minute. Did I put that number down as a 6 before? I think I may have put down an 8. But this is a 6. Maybe I got the number wrong in the first place, and that's why it said the number didn't exist! I'm going back up there right now and double checking. I have come this far and gosh darn it I will get my bike registered today! I stormed upstairs, stopped at the end of the desk because she was now working with another customer, and got the form out of my backpack.
I had written a 6 in the first place.
At this point I didn't even want a watermelon taffy anymore. I rode home dejected, in the hot sun, all the way from Center Street to 2000 North where I live. I think I got sunburned, too, and my hair was all gross from my sweaty helmet. I nearly got hit by a car once or twice and I am no longer as trustful of the wide shoulders. Plus, while Provo appears to be nearly flat, it does in fact slope downward to the South, which was quite helpful coasting on my way down to the Police Station but not quite as beneficial on the way back North. I did not obtain my much-needed bike license and will now have to make the same trip again on Monday. All in all, it was a rather unsuccessful day.
On an unrelated note, I can feel my wisdom teeth coming in the back of my mouth and I do not feel a significant increase or decrease in my IQ or my Wisdom Points. At some point I suppose I shall have to get them out; perhaps then I will discover whether or not the existence of these teeth have made an impact on my personal development.
No, I wasn't in handcuffs. You probably already figured where that one was going. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting on my brief tour of the Provo City Center/Police Department today. Probably something out of an episode of Castle: busy people, phones ringing, some goofing off and a fair bit of good honest detective work. Maybe a couple of perps. Dirtbags? People in handcuffs. Not me, though. I'm a law-abiding citizen.
What I was not expecting for sure, though, were dark windows. Silence. The absence of ringing, talking, or any semblance of goofing, on or off.
Why did I visit the darkened doors of the Provo Police Department today, you ask? Well, I'm a college student. That by itself is not sufficient reason to visit the precinct, I'm aware, but it does allow one to infer several pieces of information about me. I go to college. Hence, I go to campus every day, or at least every day I have class, assuming I actually attend class (I do). Hence, I must somehow find a way to get to campus every day. Since I am a Good Student and there are many responsibilities vying for my time, it follows that I would also like to get to campus every day in as little of it as possible. Not following that line of logic but still relying on the basic fact that I am a college student, one can also infer that I am likely poor. Hence, I would like to save as much gas as possible in order to save as much money as possible in order to be able to eat.
Combine all of this information with the knowledge that BYU requires every bike ridden on campus to hold a Provo City Bike License and one can conclude, by very good inductive or deductive reasoning (man I can never remember which is which), that I walked into the Provo City Center today to register my bike and obtain a license so that I may park my bike (with a nifty bike lock that has letters instead of numbers so that I just have to remember a word instead of a 4 digit code to unlock it, "I can remember four numbers! What was the third one?") on BYU Campus legally and in relative peace of mind, safe in the knowledge that I am a law-abiding citizen and that should my bike be stolen, it will have been registered with the Provo Police Department and be tracked down with great efficiency and not taken to the basement of the Alamo.
At least, that was my intention when I locked my bike up on a rack in the shade near the underground parking garage of the City Center (using that nifty lock) and made my way upstairs to find the police department. The universe had other plans.
I had ridden my bike to campus that day and parked it in a covered rack area in the Helaman Halls housing complex. I'm a good planner, you see, and had decided that after my 10 o'clock class I would eat lunch at the Cannon Center then ride down to the Police Department and register my bike, which would make up for my slightly-illegal parking of the bike on campus before it had actually been licensed. During the interim of when I parked my bike at 8:30 and when I finished lunch at 11:30, I completely forgot where I had actually put it and so spent a few minutes wandering around, retracing my steps to find my bike. It worked this time, and by avoiding traffic and riding in the wide shoulders of the Provo roads I was able to make it to the City Center safe and sound. I even wore my helmet the whole time. Look what a good citizen I am.
And so I eventually found my way to the main floor of the center. It smelled like asbestos and was probably built in the 70s, but I was willing to overlook those faults in order to accomplish my goals. No offense to the 70s. I paused at the top of the stairs. To the left I saw directions to several departments of the City Center. Community Development? Irrelevant to me right now. Information, though... I may come back to that. To the right were similar signs. Mayor's Office, City Council... Aha! Police Department. I remembered reading online that I must go to the police department to obtain my bike license. Therefore, to the right I turned and began my trek towards future legal bike parking. And walked. And walked. Man that was a long hallway.
Along the way I passed several doors to which had been affixed the days and times of Police Department operations. Monday thru Thursday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. Perfect, I thought. I'm here at 12:15 on Friday. It's right in the middle of their working hours; I suppose some people might be at lunch but it would be silly to have everyone go to lunch at once. I'm sure I can find someone to help me obtain my license, and then we can all be on our merry way.
Can you see where this is going.
Nearly all the doors also hold Provo's vaguely recent new logo, which looks a bit like the Obama logo, and the slogan "Welcome Home." I am a bit confused and offended by this. How much time do they want me to spend at the police department? If everyone considered it their home the police would have way too much work on their hands. Plus it's not the most comfortable of abodes; I'm sure I could find a bed somewhere but man that asbestos would get to me. Eventually I figured they were welcoming me home to Provo, not the police department. Alrighty then.
As I walk along the lengthy hallway I realize that instead of a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, the building is getting increasingly darker. Doors are shut on blackened offices and there isn't a soul in sight. I check the hours of operation again; I'm still between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm, so they can't possibly be closed. Maybe they're all out to lunch? The possibility seems slim, but there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for why the place appears to be shut down. I do see one lit room behind a door behind another door that says "POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY" and I'm too chicken to check it out. Well then. I guess I'll go to Information and see if they can solve the mystery for me, or at least give me my bike license. I begin the trek again.
A little before the point at which I had originally decided to turn right I discovered another way to go. This hallway bore the label "Customer Service" and looked vaguely promising. As I stood there puzzling and smelling the asbestos a lady paused on her way to the bathroom, the first living soul I had seen in the center so far.
"Can I help you find something?" she asked.
"I just need to register my bike," I replied, trying not to whine.
"It's just down this hallway, turn to the right and you'll be right there."
Hallelujah! At last my hard work paid off. I was finally a step closer to parking my bike in legal security. I tried to push the pull door and eventually made it inside the Customer Service area, where I awkwardly couldn't figure out where I was supposed to stand in line but eventually made it to the Customer Service Representative and told her, this time really not whining, that I needed to register my bike. She handed me a form and I began to fill it out.
I was almost immediately stumped. They want me to describe my bike, for obvious identification purposes, but I didn't know the answer to half the questions, and didn't know what the other half even meant. What are ram handlebars? How big are the wheels even? I could answer the color questions pretty well but got stuck on whether I should put the trim as being gray or white. Desk Lady was no help, so I did my best and handed her the form completed with the questions to which I knew the answers. She shrugged and seemed willing to accept what I had, but paused.
"I'm sorry, we're going to need the manufacturer's serial number."
Now, I knew that such information was likely going to be required. My older brother had told me about his experience registering his bike in Idaho: he didn't have his bike with him when he filled out the form and put 8675309 as the serial number. I was not going to stoop to such low actions; my jaunt through the darkened police department really made me reevaluate my life and no way was I going to lie on a form that was going to stay in police records forever. That's akin to putting the handcuffs on myself, I figured. No deception for me today; I was simply going to have to find that serial number. I already tried, by the way. I really did.
So I sighed a bit, tried to pull the push door, and made my way back down the asbestos stairs to the secluded rack where I had parked my cute yellow bike with the gray and white trim. The sun had moved by now, of course, and my bike was no longer in the shade. Brilliant. I looked around the frame for a while. No numbers. A couple of stickers, and a bit more dirt had accumulated than I had heretofore realized, but nothing resembling a serial number. I used my nifty internet-capable phone to solve my problem; the search "whee do you find a serial number on a bike" was sufficiently understood and I was presented with a diagram of possibilities as to where the serial number would most likely be. I checked each location; nothing. I went around to the other side of the bike and checked again; still nothing. On the verge of giving up, I finally decided to check once more; the underside of the pedal crank was the mostly likely place for the number to be, according to the website, and was also the hardest place for me to see from my position (namely, right side up). Well fine. I got down on the ground, situated myself to best view the numbers in my now upside-down state and Success! I had found the prize. I memorized the number, struggled to my feet, and was now ready to face the world with the information necessary to obtain a real-live bike license.
Back upstairs I went to the other Customer Service Representative to complete the process. I still hadn't figured out how big the wheels were, but the computer wouldn't let her finish it without the information so I just guessed something. This whole thing had already taken far too long. The license cost $1.00, so I handed her my debit card (yeah, I know it was only a dollar, but I still needed to pay my friend back with the only cash I have and remember how I'm a poor college student?) and surfed Facebook for a bit while she was finishing up. Soon enough she gets my attention.
"It says the serial number does not exist."
What.
She continues. "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to finish this without the serial number. A police officer can stamp a serial number on it in order for it to be registered, but the department is closed on Fridays. You could call our Non-Emergency Dispatch and have a police officer meet you here in order to stamp it, but otherwise you'll have to come back on Monday."
Are you. Kidding me. Well, no way was I going to call a police officer just to get my bike registered. Do I even really need to license it? It sat on campus all morning and didn't get bothered, besides how are they supposed to know it's my bike if it's not even registered? This whole process is monstrous intolerable.
This story is getting long enough. I told her I'd come back Monday, got the door right this time, and went back downstairs, forgetting to grab one of the watermelon taffies sitting in a bowl on her desk. My bike's seat was now almost unbearably hot. On a whim I decided to once more check to see if I had gotten the number right and sat back down on the ground again. Hold on a minute. Did I put that number down as a 6 before? I think I may have put down an 8. But this is a 6. Maybe I got the number wrong in the first place, and that's why it said the number didn't exist! I'm going back up there right now and double checking. I have come this far and gosh darn it I will get my bike registered today! I stormed upstairs, stopped at the end of the desk because she was now working with another customer, and got the form out of my backpack.
I had written a 6 in the first place.
At this point I didn't even want a watermelon taffy anymore. I rode home dejected, in the hot sun, all the way from Center Street to 2000 North where I live. I think I got sunburned, too, and my hair was all gross from my sweaty helmet. I nearly got hit by a car once or twice and I am no longer as trustful of the wide shoulders. Plus, while Provo appears to be nearly flat, it does in fact slope downward to the South, which was quite helpful coasting on my way down to the Police Station but not quite as beneficial on the way back North. I did not obtain my much-needed bike license and will now have to make the same trip again on Monday. All in all, it was a rather unsuccessful day.
On an unrelated note, I can feel my wisdom teeth coming in the back of my mouth and I do not feel a significant increase or decrease in my IQ or my Wisdom Points. At some point I suppose I shall have to get them out; perhaps then I will discover whether or not the existence of these teeth have made an impact on my personal development.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Conclusion: I should find a new hobby.
This is a post about food.
This is also a post of firsts. The first time I've just started writing without any real direction for my words (spoiler alert: I often write things in my head before I put them down on the screen so my previous two posts were, in fact, mostly planned. This is not. Well, mostly.) The first time, I, uh, got stuck writing within two paragraphs of beginning. You know, firsts.
This is a post that is slightly different in format to the first two writings on my blog. It's not really that hard to break a pattern when you haven't actually established one, but still. This isn't a post about a mediocre anecdote or my life reflections. Come to think of it, it probably will be both. Hence, it is different.
This is a post to be grateful. I just took a nap; how many people get to have one of those right when they want it? Not many. I got treated to dinner tonight by my wonderful grandparents, I sure was grateful for that. When I got home my other grandparent, who I live with, was sort of miffed that I didn't actually tell him where I was going this evening. How wonderful is it to have someone who cares about you when you come home slightly late? Pretty great. Once I settled that person's feelings I was able to go upstairs and lay on my bed for an hour and half, just thinking. I didn't have anything pressing to do, I had a very comfortable place to chill out, and no one bothered me at all. I fell asleep for a little while, and now I have woken up refreshed and ready to write on my blog. Outside I can hear water running and crickets and the wind blowing on this pleasant Utah evening. I have quite a lot to be grateful for.
This is also a post to complain. I ate too much at dinner so my stomach hurts. Sometimes I get annoyed that people are keeping tabs on my whereabouts like, all the time, and that they think I can't handle riding my bike outside late at night. I have lots of things to do but didn't want to do anything, so instead I laid on my bed for an hour and a half being totally unproductive. Now my throat is dry from sleeping and I've been living in Utah for two months where I can't get myself to drink enough water so my throat is always dry when I wake up and it's too hot to sleep and now I won't be able to go to sleep because I took a nap, so instead I'll have to stay up late being equally unproductive except maybe I'll write on my blog.
This is a post about perspectives.
This is a post about food again. I kind of have food issues. I love it; too much. So much that I literally could not name my favorite food. I like Chinese food and Indian food and Mexican and hamburgers and sushi and sometimes (like right now) I just really need a lemon meringue pie. So eating food isn't really an issue. Except--well, I'll get into that later. The issue comes when I eat too much of it (like right now) and when I don't get enough exercise to counter the effects of eating too much of it (like this whole summer). Every couple of weeks I decide that the latter is no longer going to be an issue; I'm going for a run this morning, gosh darn it, or maybe I should try that Bollywood dance workout DVD I got from Netflix (Hey I should do that tomorrow. No, but I didn't plan on showering tomorrow. Oh shut up, nowhere does it say that you have to shower every single day. I showered this morning. Sheesh.). You see my point? that's why it happens every couple of weeks, days even. It never actually works.
This is a post about one of the most ridiculous First World Problems ever to grace the first world: A fridge full of food and nothing to eat. I have issues feeding myself. No, I can eat just fine, and just because I spill water bottles sometimes doesn't mean I'm a slob. And I can cook too, that's not the problem either. Actually just the other week I made some Indian chicken biryani that I thought was fantastic; man with that and my Bollywood dancing I would make the perfect Indian bride. Except for the fact that I'm not Indian, I suppose. No, the above are not contributing factors to my inability to feed myself. The main factor is that I stand in front of the fridge and have nothing to eat. And then I come back five minutes later and for some reason the outlook is the same. I don't know what to eat, except that I do. Remember how I love food? Vegetables, lean meat, and whole grains are totally on that list of food I love to eat. I could eat organic, grass-fed, low-calorie food all day every day and be totally happy, except perhaps for those times I need a lemon meringue pie. No, seriously, that sounds so good right now. I don't even know where I'm going with this, really. I suppose it's just to complain some more. If I were to come up with some of my favorite meals (a problem in itself, as I've already mentioned, but not insurmountable), buy those basic ingredients, and put myself to work in the kitchen, then I'd be home free and never starve again. Hard work and good planning make Ellyn a... full girl? I just woke up.
This is a post intended to ramble a bit. Except, I'm not entirely sure what to ramble about. I think it's really cool how multi-faceted people are, and how they have so many things going on in their heads that you will never actually know about. That's called sondering, actually, what I just did. Blogger doesn't think that's a real word but I'm about to look it up. Update: I found it on The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and I'm not entirely sure it's a real word anymore, but here's the definition of sonder: "The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk." Beautiful, really.
For instance (oh, you thought this paragraph was going to start with "This is a post", didn't you? psych.), just a few weeks ago I found out that a friend of mine from the show (I'm in a show right now, didn't you know?) has the hobby of making marionettes with her family. Marionettes. Isn't that so freaking cool? It's so random! So obscure! So awesome! They do performances with them, too. I'm really quite impressed. I think it's really important to pursue your interests, because you never know when you might have a connection with someone about it. My whole life I've gone through phases of obsession, and as a result I actually have quite the collection of experiences in which I could hold an informed conversation: Bollywood, karate, China, superheroes, Anime/manga, fantasy books, classic books, math, history, dragonology (yep that's a thing), knitting, British TV, painting, popular movies, obscure movies, classical music, and K-Pop. Come to think of it, I think I'm actually a really interesting person. One of my issues, however, is that when I try to share things about myself with someone (usually in the hopes that they will in turn share something with me so that we might find something in common), it comes off as bragging. I am fully aware that the above sentence also sounds like bragging, but I promise, it is just as much of a problem to be good at lots of things as it is to not be good at anything. Besides, I don't believe anyone is good at nothing; we are each given our own talents, are we not? So that comparison is a little invalid.
This is a post to expose a few of my flaws. I'm kind of spoiled. I'm a little arrogant. I can be super bossy sometimes. Sometimes I really have trouble understanding why people can't just get over things. I'm not a fan of victims, meaning people who don't take responsibility for their own feelings and actions. I've been raised with a "get over it" and "do it anyway" philosophy, so I'm afraid I'm not very sympathetic sometimes. I'm also a little judgmental and not very nice in my head, although I usually end up regretting it. I also talk too fast, and I've gotten really good at switching over from Facebook to something professional-looking really fast when someone important comes up behind me at work. Wait I'm not sure that's a flaw.
This is a post of anticipation. Dude. I can't wait for college. I might have trouble feeding myself, and we'll see how I get along with my roommates, but I think it's really going to be awesome. I'm so excited for the classes I'm taking; yes, Hindi is one of them. I literally will get to watch Bollywood in class and make Indian food for extra credit. So stoked.
This is a post of confession: I'm not sure I really love Bollywood that much anymore. I think it has lost a little of its luster; instead of thinking "Oh my goodness I can't wait to watch another Bollywood movie" I end up thinking "Well, nothing to do tonight. Guess I better watch a Bollywood movie." And yet I am way excited to take Hindi and I have already scouted out like five different opportunities to go to India next spring. I suppose India itself hasn't lost its appeal. Maybe I should quit Bollywood while I'm having fun. And yet apparently the 46 movies I've seen haven't been enough; literally the last two times I've talked to someone about Bollywood, the movies they had seen were Lagaan and Taare Zameen Par. I have not seen those movies; sure I like Aamir Khan just fine but they've just been on my list for a while and haven't come to the top. Obviously that's what I should have done instead of sleep and write this evening. Man, I forgot where I was going with this again. I guess if watching Bollywood is starting to feel like a duty rather than a leisure then it's time to take a break. I'm not committing to anything, however. I really do like Bollywood. Part of the problem is that I can feel that I've talked about Bollywood too much. It's just that it's been at the forefront of my mind for a while now, so it comes into conversation without me meaning to bring it up. I suppose I feel like it makes me an interesting person, and it does. But if my friend mentioned her marionettes every other day I might not think they were that cool anymore, you know? I think I might be exaggerating a bit. Maybe the problem is that I mention Bollywood to so many different people that even though I do talk about it every other day, no one really minds because they're not getting the full front of my obsession, so I'm working myself up about nothing.
But you know what I just remembered? The first time I watched a real Bollywood movie was January 15 of this year. It has been seven months since then. It has been a fine seven months, I think. Perhaps it really is time to stop.
Still not committing to anything.
Well, this is a post that is going nowhere. It's kind of just been an opening into the workings of Ellyn's mind, like the cover of Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic. I went through a poetry phase, too, come to think of it. I really might be an interesting person. I've also just written 2,000 words about literally nothing, though. I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus in my tally of Interesting Person Points.
Maybe I should take up falconry.
This is also a post of firsts. The first time I've just started writing without any real direction for my words (spoiler alert: I often write things in my head before I put them down on the screen so my previous two posts were, in fact, mostly planned. This is not. Well, mostly.) The first time, I, uh, got stuck writing within two paragraphs of beginning. You know, firsts.
This is a post that is slightly different in format to the first two writings on my blog. It's not really that hard to break a pattern when you haven't actually established one, but still. This isn't a post about a mediocre anecdote or my life reflections. Come to think of it, it probably will be both. Hence, it is different.
This is a post to be grateful. I just took a nap; how many people get to have one of those right when they want it? Not many. I got treated to dinner tonight by my wonderful grandparents, I sure was grateful for that. When I got home my other grandparent, who I live with, was sort of miffed that I didn't actually tell him where I was going this evening. How wonderful is it to have someone who cares about you when you come home slightly late? Pretty great. Once I settled that person's feelings I was able to go upstairs and lay on my bed for an hour and half, just thinking. I didn't have anything pressing to do, I had a very comfortable place to chill out, and no one bothered me at all. I fell asleep for a little while, and now I have woken up refreshed and ready to write on my blog. Outside I can hear water running and crickets and the wind blowing on this pleasant Utah evening. I have quite a lot to be grateful for.
This is also a post to complain. I ate too much at dinner so my stomach hurts. Sometimes I get annoyed that people are keeping tabs on my whereabouts like, all the time, and that they think I can't handle riding my bike outside late at night. I have lots of things to do but didn't want to do anything, so instead I laid on my bed for an hour and a half being totally unproductive. Now my throat is dry from sleeping and I've been living in Utah for two months where I can't get myself to drink enough water so my throat is always dry when I wake up and it's too hot to sleep and now I won't be able to go to sleep because I took a nap, so instead I'll have to stay up late being equally unproductive except maybe I'll write on my blog.
This is a post about perspectives.
This is a post about food again. I kind of have food issues. I love it; too much. So much that I literally could not name my favorite food. I like Chinese food and Indian food and Mexican and hamburgers and sushi and sometimes (like right now) I just really need a lemon meringue pie. So eating food isn't really an issue. Except--well, I'll get into that later. The issue comes when I eat too much of it (like right now) and when I don't get enough exercise to counter the effects of eating too much of it (like this whole summer). Every couple of weeks I decide that the latter is no longer going to be an issue; I'm going for a run this morning, gosh darn it, or maybe I should try that Bollywood dance workout DVD I got from Netflix (Hey I should do that tomorrow. No, but I didn't plan on showering tomorrow. Oh shut up, nowhere does it say that you have to shower every single day. I showered this morning. Sheesh.). You see my point? that's why it happens every couple of weeks, days even. It never actually works.
This is a post about one of the most ridiculous First World Problems ever to grace the first world: A fridge full of food and nothing to eat. I have issues feeding myself. No, I can eat just fine, and just because I spill water bottles sometimes doesn't mean I'm a slob. And I can cook too, that's not the problem either. Actually just the other week I made some Indian chicken biryani that I thought was fantastic; man with that and my Bollywood dancing I would make the perfect Indian bride. Except for the fact that I'm not Indian, I suppose. No, the above are not contributing factors to my inability to feed myself. The main factor is that I stand in front of the fridge and have nothing to eat. And then I come back five minutes later and for some reason the outlook is the same. I don't know what to eat, except that I do. Remember how I love food? Vegetables, lean meat, and whole grains are totally on that list of food I love to eat. I could eat organic, grass-fed, low-calorie food all day every day and be totally happy, except perhaps for those times I need a lemon meringue pie. No, seriously, that sounds so good right now. I don't even know where I'm going with this, really. I suppose it's just to complain some more. If I were to come up with some of my favorite meals (a problem in itself, as I've already mentioned, but not insurmountable), buy those basic ingredients, and put myself to work in the kitchen, then I'd be home free and never starve again. Hard work and good planning make Ellyn a... full girl? I just woke up.
This is a post intended to ramble a bit. Except, I'm not entirely sure what to ramble about. I think it's really cool how multi-faceted people are, and how they have so many things going on in their heads that you will never actually know about. That's called sondering, actually, what I just did. Blogger doesn't think that's a real word but I'm about to look it up. Update: I found it on The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and I'm not entirely sure it's a real word anymore, but here's the definition of sonder: "The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk." Beautiful, really.
For instance (oh, you thought this paragraph was going to start with "This is a post", didn't you? psych.), just a few weeks ago I found out that a friend of mine from the show (I'm in a show right now, didn't you know?) has the hobby of making marionettes with her family. Marionettes. Isn't that so freaking cool? It's so random! So obscure! So awesome! They do performances with them, too. I'm really quite impressed. I think it's really important to pursue your interests, because you never know when you might have a connection with someone about it. My whole life I've gone through phases of obsession, and as a result I actually have quite the collection of experiences in which I could hold an informed conversation: Bollywood, karate, China, superheroes, Anime/manga, fantasy books, classic books, math, history, dragonology (yep that's a thing), knitting, British TV, painting, popular movies, obscure movies, classical music, and K-Pop. Come to think of it, I think I'm actually a really interesting person. One of my issues, however, is that when I try to share things about myself with someone (usually in the hopes that they will in turn share something with me so that we might find something in common), it comes off as bragging. I am fully aware that the above sentence also sounds like bragging, but I promise, it is just as much of a problem to be good at lots of things as it is to not be good at anything. Besides, I don't believe anyone is good at nothing; we are each given our own talents, are we not? So that comparison is a little invalid.
This is a post to expose a few of my flaws. I'm kind of spoiled. I'm a little arrogant. I can be super bossy sometimes. Sometimes I really have trouble understanding why people can't just get over things. I'm not a fan of victims, meaning people who don't take responsibility for their own feelings and actions. I've been raised with a "get over it" and "do it anyway" philosophy, so I'm afraid I'm not very sympathetic sometimes. I'm also a little judgmental and not very nice in my head, although I usually end up regretting it. I also talk too fast, and I've gotten really good at switching over from Facebook to something professional-looking really fast when someone important comes up behind me at work. Wait I'm not sure that's a flaw.
This is a post of anticipation. Dude. I can't wait for college. I might have trouble feeding myself, and we'll see how I get along with my roommates, but I think it's really going to be awesome. I'm so excited for the classes I'm taking; yes, Hindi is one of them. I literally will get to watch Bollywood in class and make Indian food for extra credit. So stoked.
This is a post of confession: I'm not sure I really love Bollywood that much anymore. I think it has lost a little of its luster; instead of thinking "Oh my goodness I can't wait to watch another Bollywood movie" I end up thinking "Well, nothing to do tonight. Guess I better watch a Bollywood movie." And yet I am way excited to take Hindi and I have already scouted out like five different opportunities to go to India next spring. I suppose India itself hasn't lost its appeal. Maybe I should quit Bollywood while I'm having fun. And yet apparently the 46 movies I've seen haven't been enough; literally the last two times I've talked to someone about Bollywood, the movies they had seen were Lagaan and Taare Zameen Par. I have not seen those movies; sure I like Aamir Khan just fine but they've just been on my list for a while and haven't come to the top. Obviously that's what I should have done instead of sleep and write this evening. Man, I forgot where I was going with this again. I guess if watching Bollywood is starting to feel like a duty rather than a leisure then it's time to take a break. I'm not committing to anything, however. I really do like Bollywood. Part of the problem is that I can feel that I've talked about Bollywood too much. It's just that it's been at the forefront of my mind for a while now, so it comes into conversation without me meaning to bring it up. I suppose I feel like it makes me an interesting person, and it does. But if my friend mentioned her marionettes every other day I might not think they were that cool anymore, you know? I think I might be exaggerating a bit. Maybe the problem is that I mention Bollywood to so many different people that even though I do talk about it every other day, no one really minds because they're not getting the full front of my obsession, so I'm working myself up about nothing.
But you know what I just remembered? The first time I watched a real Bollywood movie was January 15 of this year. It has been seven months since then. It has been a fine seven months, I think. Perhaps it really is time to stop.
Still not committing to anything.
Well, this is a post that is going nowhere. It's kind of just been an opening into the workings of Ellyn's mind, like the cover of Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic. I went through a poetry phase, too, come to think of it. I really might be an interesting person. I've also just written 2,000 words about literally nothing, though. I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus in my tally of Interesting Person Points.
Maybe I should take up falconry.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Conclusion: I should probably chill out.
I designed my wedding invitations today.
No, I'm not engaged. No, I don't have a boyfriend. No, I've never even been mildly close to having a boyfriend and I've never even been kissed (oops did I say that out loud no calm down you're only eighteen it's going to happen someday just maybe not soon oh no what if my first kiss is over the altar that would be so embarrassing). I just, you know, designed my wedding invitation and named my first child and all that. No big deal.
This isn't actually a new thing for me; after all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl is going to plan her wedding long before she can legally drive. Or get married. It probably depends on the state.
I designed my first wedding dress in fourth grade. I kind of went through a dress-designing stage. Somebody gave me an awesome pack of mini colored pencils for my birthday, and I filled two whole legal pads with one dress design after another, each colored in to perfection and representing the height of fashion, at least in my nine-year-old mind. I still remember the white A-line dress with wide straps and strawberry-printed fabric. Man that would have been a cute dress. I had scruples that it wasn't modest because it didn't have sleeves; at this point I can't actually remember my justification for designing it anyway. Probably wearing a sweater over it, although come to think of it I'm not sure that type of layering was really in style for that season and my age. Ponchos were really more the thing. I counted 17 ponchos on the playground on the first day of fourth grade; the only way to top a poncho (mine was pink with a sparkly butterfly on the front) in the hierarchy of fashion was to wear a miniskirt over your jeans, even better if the miniskirt was also denim. If you had all three? Dang, girl, you is in style.
Somehow my sleeveless scruples were forgotten in designing my wedding dress. The only pretense at sleeves for this masterpiece were little petals of chiffon, designed to look like butterfly wings as they covered the shoulder (I guess it was a thing. What fourth grader doesn't love butterflies?). I wouldn't have known it was chiffon at the time, but I certainly knew exactly the kind of fabric I would have used for each portion of the dress, down to the dandelion-yellow matelassé for the bodice. Yeah, you heard that right. Vera Wang in the making, right there.
Wedding Dress 2.0 was a little more elegant: see-through lace covering the whole arm, shoulders and collarbone (see, sleeves! still modest.) with a sweetheart neckline of white satin coming down the body, the longest full skirt you can imagine, with the bottom coming out in a smooth train. This design came with a groom in mind: my fourth grade crush (and fifth. and sixth. and seventh.). I made the mistake of drawing us together and naming the man to the entire class, him included. We're still friends, actually; in his note to me in my yearbook he said that the day I drew a picture of us getting married he went home and talked to his mom about it and decided it was something he was cool with. He has a girlfriend now.
(An aside: the other day I walked in on my aunt watching Say Yes To The Dress. Soon enough my aunt comments: "I would kill my daughter if she ever wanted to wear a see-through wedding dress." Noted: 2.0 is officially out of the picture, as well as 1.2 which had see-through lace instead of the matelassé. Come to think of it I'm not her daughter, but I think I should still respect her opinion. Also, does anyone know how people actually get on that show? Is it as difficult as finding North Dakota?)
Version 3.0 was inspired by my love of wedge heels; I had the cutest black pair with little bows on the toe in seventh grade and decided that nothing else would do for my wedding except the same, but in white. If you're going to wear wedge heels on your wedding day you must, of course, show them off and your lovely calves to boot (a pun, because soon enough the design changed to white boots worthy of the go-go era) and hence, a knee-length wedding dress design was soon drawn up. Er, slightly below the knee. Knees really aren't that attractive. This one was also satin, but with actual short sleeves, a sweetheart neckline (it was a phase) and the fullest crinoline you can imagine. Again, I didn't know what a crinoline was at that point (still didn't know, actually, until like four months ago), but the principle was there and gosh darn it my wedding dress was going to have a big skirt with visible tulle. Still might, actually; Version 4.0 has yet to be imagined, although I may trade the white wedges for some pumps in the wedding color (coral, if I'm married in the spring or summer, and a rich aubergine if in the fall; either season will include roses in the appropriate color and a reception with an actual program so that I can dance with my dad like in What A Girl Wants, shut up that's a great movie). Color blocking is all the rage.
Hence, it was no strange thing for me to be daydreaming about my future wedding invitation. I've already got the party nearly planned; we've got to get people there somehow! So here's my idea, and guess what, someone else already thought of it.
You know that thing that tech-savvy and young couples do, where the wedding invitations look like a movie poster? It could be a totally made up movie, or they've edited the original to fit their own names, story, etc., or they have a series of posters that tell a story (ending with "Reception," of course, with Leonardo's silhouette). So, I'm totally taking all of the above ideas to make one brilliant, graphically-impressive fold-out wedding invitation that uses Comic Sans exactly zero times.
And it all started because my current crush kind of looks like the guy from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. No, not Keanu Reeves. Hey, my mom met him in an elevator once. Keanu, I mean, not the other guy or my current crush.
So get this: we take a photo like the one on the cover of the DVD my family owns (both of them. We have two copies, it's that great of a movie), the one with the guys looking through the windows of the phone booth all confused. Then, we title it "_____ and Ellyn's Excellent Adventure." Get it? Like, getting married is an excellent adventure, right?! Shut up, it's a brilliant idea.
That would be the first image you see, and then it would fold out with a couple of other our favorite movies, some of the ones that we have watched together and cried over, like The Princess Bride. And we could totally dress up in different costumes and pose like the actors do in the poster, oh my goodness he would SO totally go for this I can't wait to tell him about it, I'm going to go ask him right now--
Oh. I forgot we aren't actually engaged. Or dating. Or even been on one date. Come to think of it, I don't even know if he's seen The Princess Bride. That might be an issue.
And it's all because (the dating part, not the movie) when I try to talk to him, or joke with him, or even look at him, I get all sorts of butterflies and I feel like a dork and I don't know what to say and I think "he must like that other girl", and then I want to sit next to him but then he like walks away and I stand there awkwardly, or I end up placing myself so that I can sit and look at him, but then I end up staring creepily and still don't know what to say. Then I try to be all flirty and bump shoulders with him or something but end up almost knocking him over.
I communicated some of this angst to my friend through text the other night. Her advice? "Stop staring, be chill. Let's come up with a strategy. I think first you must get him interested and then play it cool for a little bit so he gets all worried and nervous and then you marry him."
Brilliant. Couldn't have come up with better myself.
Earlier, she had said something along these lines: "Step up and do something! Put your flirtatious Ellyn to work, then invite him to hang out. You never have any problems asking people out!"
Okay, but here's the problem. Those times I never had problems asking people out? I didn't actually like those guys. No, not that I didn't like them, just that I didn't like like them. I was happy to go on a date and just hang out as friends, but I didn't get all butterfly-y and nervous and want to go sit in a corner but at the same time want to sit really close and link arms and go stargazing. See, here's my issue: when I actually like the guy, I can't joke, I can't flirt. If someone who knows him talks to me about it I get beyond embarrassed. Remember fourth-fifth-sixth-seventh grade crush who I was going to marry? It has taken me eight years to joke with him about it. Eight years.
So I have to tell myself to chill out. Chances are, I'm not even really going to have as big of a crush in two weeks. I didn't two weeks ago. We might not even see each other that much in the future; we'll be going to different colleges in the fall, I'm thinking about going abroad next spring, I'm thinking about a mission, he's thinking about a mission. I'm eighteen and one-third; if we were to start dating, then what? That dream wedding invitation is years out. Recently somebody asked me if I was going to attend the Singles Ward, and in my head I went, "Am I allowed to go the Singles Ward? I don't know. I think I am. I'm not sure I want to," so obviously I am not quite ready for wedding bells, or maybe even the dating scene. Beyond that: dude, I'm not in fourth grade anymore. It's probably time to stop getting embarrassed about a crush. I am in truth a rather practical person, and I can see the ridiculousness of writing an entire blog post about how I'm too nervous to talk to a boy. I am resolved; I will henceforth chill out.
But that doesn't stop the fact that inside I am super nervous about writing this all out and putting it on the internet. What if he reads this and knows I'm talking about him? I can feel anxiety rising at the very thought, there's no way I could look him in the eye. What if he reads this and thinks I'm talking about someone else? That would be even more embarrassing; he'd see me tomorrow and think that I have a huge crush on some other guy and not even try, fingers crossed he'd even try in the first place and that he in turn doesn't actually have a crush on some other girl. Oh my goodness, what if he reads this and knows I'm talking about him and decides I am way too dramatic and stays as far away from me as possible? I take it back; this isn't a huge crush, just a mild like because you've got a cute face and are really funny and fun to be around and I really want to be your best friend. ugh I'm such a teenage girl.
But I watched a Bollywood movie today and you know what somebody said? "Bad luck and a sharp mind, it's a dangerous combination, Priya."
Oh wait that wasn't it. Let me go rewatch part of the movie again.
And I can't even find the quote I was looking for. I'm not even sure if somebody actually said what I got out of the line, or if I just came to my own conclusion on what the message was: Communication. If nobody ever tells the other one their feelings, then for one we have a dramatic movie, and for two we have a lot of confusion and heartache and all that. In most movies and TV shows, if they would have just confessed their feelings earlier then everything would have turned out great. Except for Playful Kiss where she confessed her feelings in a letter at the very beginning of the show and he returned it to her with all of her mistakes corrected in red pen and a big F at the top. Oh wait, I'm not sure that was a good example because 16 episodes later everything does turn out all right in the end. Come to think of it I don't think I ever actually finished that show. In conclusion, I now stand by my decision to post my feelings on the internet.
I'm not sure that was the conclusion I should have come to.
Man, if this isn't a roundabout way to confess your like to someone, then I don't know what is. Has my life become a Korean soap opera? Or do I just watch too much Bollywood? Probably both.
oh my goodness what if he reads this what if he reads this CHILL OUT ELLYN
No, I'm not engaged. No, I don't have a boyfriend. No, I've never even been mildly close to having a boyfriend and I've never even been kissed (oops did I say that out loud no calm down you're only eighteen it's going to happen someday just maybe not soon oh no what if my first kiss is over the altar that would be so embarrassing). I just, you know, designed my wedding invitation and named my first child and all that. No big deal.
This isn't actually a new thing for me; after all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl is going to plan her wedding long before she can legally drive. Or get married. It probably depends on the state.
I designed my first wedding dress in fourth grade. I kind of went through a dress-designing stage. Somebody gave me an awesome pack of mini colored pencils for my birthday, and I filled two whole legal pads with one dress design after another, each colored in to perfection and representing the height of fashion, at least in my nine-year-old mind. I still remember the white A-line dress with wide straps and strawberry-printed fabric. Man that would have been a cute dress. I had scruples that it wasn't modest because it didn't have sleeves; at this point I can't actually remember my justification for designing it anyway. Probably wearing a sweater over it, although come to think of it I'm not sure that type of layering was really in style for that season and my age. Ponchos were really more the thing. I counted 17 ponchos on the playground on the first day of fourth grade; the only way to top a poncho (mine was pink with a sparkly butterfly on the front) in the hierarchy of fashion was to wear a miniskirt over your jeans, even better if the miniskirt was also denim. If you had all three? Dang, girl, you is in style.
Somehow my sleeveless scruples were forgotten in designing my wedding dress. The only pretense at sleeves for this masterpiece were little petals of chiffon, designed to look like butterfly wings as they covered the shoulder (I guess it was a thing. What fourth grader doesn't love butterflies?). I wouldn't have known it was chiffon at the time, but I certainly knew exactly the kind of fabric I would have used for each portion of the dress, down to the dandelion-yellow matelassé for the bodice. Yeah, you heard that right. Vera Wang in the making, right there.
Wedding Dress 2.0 was a little more elegant: see-through lace covering the whole arm, shoulders and collarbone (see, sleeves! still modest.) with a sweetheart neckline of white satin coming down the body, the longest full skirt you can imagine, with the bottom coming out in a smooth train. This design came with a groom in mind: my fourth grade crush (and fifth. and sixth. and seventh.). I made the mistake of drawing us together and naming the man to the entire class, him included. We're still friends, actually; in his note to me in my yearbook he said that the day I drew a picture of us getting married he went home and talked to his mom about it and decided it was something he was cool with. He has a girlfriend now.
(An aside: the other day I walked in on my aunt watching Say Yes To The Dress. Soon enough my aunt comments: "I would kill my daughter if she ever wanted to wear a see-through wedding dress." Noted: 2.0 is officially out of the picture, as well as 1.2 which had see-through lace instead of the matelassé. Come to think of it I'm not her daughter, but I think I should still respect her opinion. Also, does anyone know how people actually get on that show? Is it as difficult as finding North Dakota?)
Version 3.0 was inspired by my love of wedge heels; I had the cutest black pair with little bows on the toe in seventh grade and decided that nothing else would do for my wedding except the same, but in white. If you're going to wear wedge heels on your wedding day you must, of course, show them off and your lovely calves to boot (a pun, because soon enough the design changed to white boots worthy of the go-go era) and hence, a knee-length wedding dress design was soon drawn up. Er, slightly below the knee. Knees really aren't that attractive. This one was also satin, but with actual short sleeves, a sweetheart neckline (it was a phase) and the fullest crinoline you can imagine. Again, I didn't know what a crinoline was at that point (still didn't know, actually, until like four months ago), but the principle was there and gosh darn it my wedding dress was going to have a big skirt with visible tulle. Still might, actually; Version 4.0 has yet to be imagined, although I may trade the white wedges for some pumps in the wedding color (coral, if I'm married in the spring or summer, and a rich aubergine if in the fall; either season will include roses in the appropriate color and a reception with an actual program so that I can dance with my dad like in What A Girl Wants, shut up that's a great movie). Color blocking is all the rage.
Hence, it was no strange thing for me to be daydreaming about my future wedding invitation. I've already got the party nearly planned; we've got to get people there somehow! So here's my idea, and guess what, someone else already thought of it.
You know that thing that tech-savvy and young couples do, where the wedding invitations look like a movie poster? It could be a totally made up movie, or they've edited the original to fit their own names, story, etc., or they have a series of posters that tell a story (ending with "Reception," of course, with Leonardo's silhouette). So, I'm totally taking all of the above ideas to make one brilliant, graphically-impressive fold-out wedding invitation that uses Comic Sans exactly zero times.
And it all started because my current crush kind of looks like the guy from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. No, not Keanu Reeves. Hey, my mom met him in an elevator once. Keanu, I mean, not the other guy or my current crush.
So get this: we take a photo like the one on the cover of the DVD my family owns (both of them. We have two copies, it's that great of a movie), the one with the guys looking through the windows of the phone booth all confused. Then, we title it "_____ and Ellyn's Excellent Adventure." Get it? Like, getting married is an excellent adventure, right?! Shut up, it's a brilliant idea.
That would be the first image you see, and then it would fold out with a couple of other our favorite movies, some of the ones that we have watched together and cried over, like The Princess Bride. And we could totally dress up in different costumes and pose like the actors do in the poster, oh my goodness he would SO totally go for this I can't wait to tell him about it, I'm going to go ask him right now--
Oh. I forgot we aren't actually engaged. Or dating. Or even been on one date. Come to think of it, I don't even know if he's seen The Princess Bride. That might be an issue.
And it's all because (the dating part, not the movie) when I try to talk to him, or joke with him, or even look at him, I get all sorts of butterflies and I feel like a dork and I don't know what to say and I think "he must like that other girl", and then I want to sit next to him but then he like walks away and I stand there awkwardly, or I end up placing myself so that I can sit and look at him, but then I end up staring creepily and still don't know what to say. Then I try to be all flirty and bump shoulders with him or something but end up almost knocking him over.
I communicated some of this angst to my friend through text the other night. Her advice? "Stop staring, be chill. Let's come up with a strategy. I think first you must get him interested and then play it cool for a little bit so he gets all worried and nervous and then you marry him."
Brilliant. Couldn't have come up with better myself.
Earlier, she had said something along these lines: "Step up and do something! Put your flirtatious Ellyn to work, then invite him to hang out. You never have any problems asking people out!"
Okay, but here's the problem. Those times I never had problems asking people out? I didn't actually like those guys. No, not that I didn't like them, just that I didn't like like them. I was happy to go on a date and just hang out as friends, but I didn't get all butterfly-y and nervous and want to go sit in a corner but at the same time want to sit really close and link arms and go stargazing. See, here's my issue: when I actually like the guy, I can't joke, I can't flirt. If someone who knows him talks to me about it I get beyond embarrassed. Remember fourth-fifth-sixth-seventh grade crush who I was going to marry? It has taken me eight years to joke with him about it. Eight years.
So I have to tell myself to chill out. Chances are, I'm not even really going to have as big of a crush in two weeks. I didn't two weeks ago. We might not even see each other that much in the future; we'll be going to different colleges in the fall, I'm thinking about going abroad next spring, I'm thinking about a mission, he's thinking about a mission. I'm eighteen and one-third; if we were to start dating, then what? That dream wedding invitation is years out. Recently somebody asked me if I was going to attend the Singles Ward, and in my head I went, "Am I allowed to go the Singles Ward? I don't know. I think I am. I'm not sure I want to," so obviously I am not quite ready for wedding bells, or maybe even the dating scene. Beyond that: dude, I'm not in fourth grade anymore. It's probably time to stop getting embarrassed about a crush. I am in truth a rather practical person, and I can see the ridiculousness of writing an entire blog post about how I'm too nervous to talk to a boy. I am resolved; I will henceforth chill out.
But that doesn't stop the fact that inside I am super nervous about writing this all out and putting it on the internet. What if he reads this and knows I'm talking about him? I can feel anxiety rising at the very thought, there's no way I could look him in the eye. What if he reads this and thinks I'm talking about someone else? That would be even more embarrassing; he'd see me tomorrow and think that I have a huge crush on some other guy and not even try, fingers crossed he'd even try in the first place and that he in turn doesn't actually have a crush on some other girl. Oh my goodness, what if he reads this and knows I'm talking about him and decides I am way too dramatic and stays as far away from me as possible? I take it back; this isn't a huge crush, just a mild like because you've got a cute face and are really funny and fun to be around and I really want to be your best friend. ugh I'm such a teenage girl.
But I watched a Bollywood movie today and you know what somebody said? "Bad luck and a sharp mind, it's a dangerous combination, Priya."
Oh wait that wasn't it. Let me go rewatch part of the movie again.
And I can't even find the quote I was looking for. I'm not even sure if somebody actually said what I got out of the line, or if I just came to my own conclusion on what the message was: Communication. If nobody ever tells the other one their feelings, then for one we have a dramatic movie, and for two we have a lot of confusion and heartache and all that. In most movies and TV shows, if they would have just confessed their feelings earlier then everything would have turned out great. Except for Playful Kiss where she confessed her feelings in a letter at the very beginning of the show and he returned it to her with all of her mistakes corrected in red pen and a big F at the top. Oh wait, I'm not sure that was a good example because 16 episodes later everything does turn out all right in the end. Come to think of it I don't think I ever actually finished that show. In conclusion, I now stand by my decision to post my feelings on the internet.
I'm not sure that was the conclusion I should have come to.
Man, if this isn't a roundabout way to confess your like to someone, then I don't know what is. Has my life become a Korean soap opera? Or do I just watch too much Bollywood? Probably both.
oh my goodness what if he reads this what if he reads this CHILL OUT ELLYN
Friday, August 9, 2013
Conclusion: I should post on my blog.
It started at 4:00 on a Friday.
"Ellyn, the place is dead. You can go home early if you want," my coworker says. I'm not quite sure how to take this; has she noticed that I haven't actually been doing any work for the past hour, and wants me to go home so that I'm not getting dishonestly paid? Or is she being considerate and thinking I would rather be at home than doing nothing here at work? I appreciate both sentiments, I think. I decide to leave.
Now, a tangent on the UTA Bus System. I appreciate it; I really do. I have no vehicle of my own right now, and it is a convenient and fairly cheap method to get to work every day. The stops are convenient for both home and work, and in general the bus drivers are friendly (I won't go into the time I chatted happily with my sister for ten minutes until the bus driver stops at an intersection and says, "Miss, can you keep it down? I can hear your whole conversation. It's very distracting," or my subsequent embarrassment because I had been talking about the boy I like. No, I won't go into that.), so all in all it's an asset rather than a hindrance to my well-being and my bank.
But. It does not appear to excel at communication; between drivers, of routes, or towards the customers. Recently the stop nearest my work has moved several times; there is construction happening on that side of the street. This I understand: construction is annoying but we have to work around it. If the stop moves down the street, farther from my work, I will be slightly disgruntled but will walk the distance anyway because, hey, there's construction. If on one day the northbound and the southbound buses stop at the same place and the other day they stop 50 yards apart, I understand, although my level of disgruntlement will raise because I had to run like a fool to get to the bus. All this I understand, albeit disgruntledly.
Where my understanding lacks, however, is when the southbound bus stops at the northbound stop in the morning, and in the evening when I get off of work early and expect to be able to take a bus shortly after 4:00, the northbound bus drives right by the northbound stop I had been trotting towards and stops briefly at the southbound stop, the driver looking vaguely in my direction when I wave furiously but never stopping to answer my query of whether he was, in fact, a northbound or a southbound bus. See, that is what I don't understand.
Hence, we find Ellyn standing in the midst of construction and feeling more than a little disgruntled that she will now have to wait half an hour for the next bus: a northbound 832. Well, at least I'll get some time to think to myself.
Soon enough Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before walks up. We briefly chat; I've seen him in the office where I work several times and we laugh about one of the deans. Silence, until the occasional person stops by and asks if this stop is northbound or southbound; North, we answer, At least we think it is. Aren't the buses frustrating this week? Good luck getting on the right one.
Halfway through my self-allotted wait time I think to myself: Am I unhappy about this situation? Am I discontent with my life and my choices? The answer I arrive at is No. I am a little annoyed, to be sure, and my knees are starting to hurt, but it could certainly be worse. It's not cold, it's not hot, and here's a chance to work on improving my posture. Oh, well now it's started to rain. Still not unhappy; sometimes it's nice to feel the rain for a little while. Such were my musings.
At least, until Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before gets onto the 830 northbound bus and it drives away.
Now, I know that I do not ride the 830. I ride the 832. I am aware of the fact that the 830 and the 832 have similar routes and both eventually get to the Timpanogos Transit Center, my intended destination. I am aware that if I were to step onto the northbound 830 I would make it home as surely as if I were to step onto a northbound 832.
But I read the website, and the website says that the 830 is a special FrontRunner bus designed specifically for commuters, and has a higher fare. My student pass will not work on the 830, and I am not willing to pay for a fare when I've already paid for my pass; that thing cost money, yaar, and I aint spending any more. Hence, I will not step onto the 830 even though I know it will get me home.
But then why did Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before ride it? He is clearly a student. I saw him swipe a card as he stepped onto the bus, but he must have some sort of special card or be willing to pay the difference. I resolve not to worry about it; I am safe in the knowledge that I read the website and that the northbound 832 will be coming in ten minutes anyway.
Soon enough, Guy In A Red Shirt walks up and asks if this is the northbound or the southbound stop. Northbound, I say with confidence. There's a knocked-over sign right there and a northbound bus just stopped here a few minutes ago. He trusts me and stays, exchanging brief small talk about the inconveniences of the bus system. I hear ya, bro.
We stand in companionable silence until another bus comes up; this one is a northbound 830. Hold on a minute, we just had one of those. Isn't it time for the 832 to come by? Red Shirt moves forward to enter the bus but it drives by and stops at the southbound stop; he is now disgruntled as he is forced to trot to get onto the bus, having been deceived by a girl standing at the northbound stop that the bus would indeed stop where it was supposed to. Sorry, I call as he jogs away. I'm not sorry. I'm disgruntled.
By the time 40 minutes since I have arrived at the bus stop have passed, I have decided that I am officially unhappy with the situation. The northbound 832 bus that was supposed to arrive around 4:30 is clearly not coming, it has begun to rain harder and colder, and I am getting the niggling feeling that I could have, in fact, followed Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before's example and boarded the northbound 830 bus. I resolve then and there that if another northbound 830 bus stops by, I will step on board and ask if the bus will take my student pass.
Soon enough I am given the opportunity to test my resolve. I step on board.
"Do you take student passes?" I ask the driver.
"Swipe it and see," he shrugs. I do so. I get a green light.
It is 4:48, nearly fifty minutes after I missed my original northbound 832 bus. My level of disgruntlement has now reached its peak. I had started out happy: excited to get home early, eat dinner, and take my time getting ready for the show tonight. I ended up quite unhappy: I had stood in the rain forever, likely catching a cold, I had deceived my fellow UTA customers, and worst of all I could have been home half an hour earlier if I has just followed Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before onto the first northbound 830, and would now have been sitting at home munching on nachos or leftover Indian food or whatever I could scrounge up for dinner.
At least, I thought as the bus pulled into the Timpanogos Transit Center, my internal narrative would make a pretty good first post for my blog.
"Ellyn, the place is dead. You can go home early if you want," my coworker says. I'm not quite sure how to take this; has she noticed that I haven't actually been doing any work for the past hour, and wants me to go home so that I'm not getting dishonestly paid? Or is she being considerate and thinking I would rather be at home than doing nothing here at work? I appreciate both sentiments, I think. I decide to leave.
Now, a tangent on the UTA Bus System. I appreciate it; I really do. I have no vehicle of my own right now, and it is a convenient and fairly cheap method to get to work every day. The stops are convenient for both home and work, and in general the bus drivers are friendly (I won't go into the time I chatted happily with my sister for ten minutes until the bus driver stops at an intersection and says, "Miss, can you keep it down? I can hear your whole conversation. It's very distracting," or my subsequent embarrassment because I had been talking about the boy I like. No, I won't go into that.), so all in all it's an asset rather than a hindrance to my well-being and my bank.
But. It does not appear to excel at communication; between drivers, of routes, or towards the customers. Recently the stop nearest my work has moved several times; there is construction happening on that side of the street. This I understand: construction is annoying but we have to work around it. If the stop moves down the street, farther from my work, I will be slightly disgruntled but will walk the distance anyway because, hey, there's construction. If on one day the northbound and the southbound buses stop at the same place and the other day they stop 50 yards apart, I understand, although my level of disgruntlement will raise because I had to run like a fool to get to the bus. All this I understand, albeit disgruntledly.
Where my understanding lacks, however, is when the southbound bus stops at the northbound stop in the morning, and in the evening when I get off of work early and expect to be able to take a bus shortly after 4:00, the northbound bus drives right by the northbound stop I had been trotting towards and stops briefly at the southbound stop, the driver looking vaguely in my direction when I wave furiously but never stopping to answer my query of whether he was, in fact, a northbound or a southbound bus. See, that is what I don't understand.
Hence, we find Ellyn standing in the midst of construction and feeling more than a little disgruntled that she will now have to wait half an hour for the next bus: a northbound 832. Well, at least I'll get some time to think to myself.
Soon enough Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before walks up. We briefly chat; I've seen him in the office where I work several times and we laugh about one of the deans. Silence, until the occasional person stops by and asks if this stop is northbound or southbound; North, we answer, At least we think it is. Aren't the buses frustrating this week? Good luck getting on the right one.
Halfway through my self-allotted wait time I think to myself: Am I unhappy about this situation? Am I discontent with my life and my choices? The answer I arrive at is No. I am a little annoyed, to be sure, and my knees are starting to hurt, but it could certainly be worse. It's not cold, it's not hot, and here's a chance to work on improving my posture. Oh, well now it's started to rain. Still not unhappy; sometimes it's nice to feel the rain for a little while. Such were my musings.
At least, until Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before gets onto the 830 northbound bus and it drives away.
Now, I know that I do not ride the 830. I ride the 832. I am aware of the fact that the 830 and the 832 have similar routes and both eventually get to the Timpanogos Transit Center, my intended destination. I am aware that if I were to step onto the northbound 830 I would make it home as surely as if I were to step onto a northbound 832.
But I read the website, and the website says that the 830 is a special FrontRunner bus designed specifically for commuters, and has a higher fare. My student pass will not work on the 830, and I am not willing to pay for a fare when I've already paid for my pass; that thing cost money, yaar, and I aint spending any more. Hence, I will not step onto the 830 even though I know it will get me home.
But then why did Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before ride it? He is clearly a student. I saw him swipe a card as he stepped onto the bus, but he must have some sort of special card or be willing to pay the difference. I resolve not to worry about it; I am safe in the knowledge that I read the website and that the northbound 832 will be coming in ten minutes anyway.
Soon enough, Guy In A Red Shirt walks up and asks if this is the northbound or the southbound stop. Northbound, I say with confidence. There's a knocked-over sign right there and a northbound bus just stopped here a few minutes ago. He trusts me and stays, exchanging brief small talk about the inconveniences of the bus system. I hear ya, bro.
We stand in companionable silence until another bus comes up; this one is a northbound 830. Hold on a minute, we just had one of those. Isn't it time for the 832 to come by? Red Shirt moves forward to enter the bus but it drives by and stops at the southbound stop; he is now disgruntled as he is forced to trot to get onto the bus, having been deceived by a girl standing at the northbound stop that the bus would indeed stop where it was supposed to. Sorry, I call as he jogs away. I'm not sorry. I'm disgruntled.
By the time 40 minutes since I have arrived at the bus stop have passed, I have decided that I am officially unhappy with the situation. The northbound 832 bus that was supposed to arrive around 4:30 is clearly not coming, it has begun to rain harder and colder, and I am getting the niggling feeling that I could have, in fact, followed Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before's example and boarded the northbound 830 bus. I resolve then and there that if another northbound 830 bus stops by, I will step on board and ask if the bus will take my student pass.
Soon enough I am given the opportunity to test my resolve. I step on board.
"Do you take student passes?" I ask the driver.
"Swipe it and see," he shrugs. I do so. I get a green light.
It is 4:48, nearly fifty minutes after I missed my original northbound 832 bus. My level of disgruntlement has now reached its peak. I had started out happy: excited to get home early, eat dinner, and take my time getting ready for the show tonight. I ended up quite unhappy: I had stood in the rain forever, likely catching a cold, I had deceived my fellow UTA customers, and worst of all I could have been home half an hour earlier if I has just followed Guy I've Noticed On My Bus Before onto the first northbound 830, and would now have been sitting at home munching on nachos or leftover Indian food or whatever I could scrounge up for dinner.
At least, I thought as the bus pulled into the Timpanogos Transit Center, my internal narrative would make a pretty good first post for my blog.
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