As of late

Not much writing here this time. Just want to say that I am back in Provo. School starts on Monday. I am moved into my new apartment with my lovely room mates/best friends. I miss my family very much. I've already eaten too much Del Taco. I'm very happy to see all the people I was missing this summer.

And I finally wrote another dumb story, here. I wrote it quickly in the airport on very little sleep, so it might sound a bit cracked up. Or fully cracked up.

Today is a Favorite Day

I've been asked before to tell about a "favorite day or memory" I have, you know, to get to know me or to bring out my creative side. Those questions are often hard for me, as for most others I suspect. I lean towards having "top 20 lists" for things like my favorite memory, book, food, or movie, and that makes me squirm when people ask about them.
However inconvenient that might be, I would like to add today to my "favorite day" list.
Added.
Done.
Here is a bit of it:
A lovely family in our ward let us use their kayaks. 

We went down a river, which was fairly epic.

Then we paddled to a rope swing (in the estuary - where river and sea meet, fun fact from Rosy today).
I CLIMBED A TREE to get to where I needed to jump off.

And yes, I jumped off.
Rosie did it and PJ did it upside down, crazy kids. So much fun.
I don't have all the pictures yet. There will be more, and, if you are lucky, some video. 

We then paddled out into the ocean; it was much harder than the river. The waves were not big at all, but it still made it difficult and my arms feel like jelly right now.
We reached a beach where we rested and put our heads upside down and looked out to sea with the ocean as the roof, a very trippy experience.
It was a perfect time with a few kayak battles thrown in as well.  PJ totally jumped onto Rosy and my kayak and "commandeered" it, which means  attacked and tipped us over.

We were all happy and not a bad thing happened.
I honestly can say that I went a solid seven straight hours without even a single fleeting negative thought about anything or anyone.
I couldn't stop laughing all day. I mean it, I feel so good.

Joy.
Not just happiness, but blissful genuine Joy.
These days make me want to just sit and think about them for the rest of the night. I am going to go do so.

Dun nuh nuh nah naaaaaahhhhh.... DUN DUN

Stanly Fish writes an opinion blog for the New York Times. In this kind of recent article, he actually spends his time and words talking about Law and Order, which has reached it's end after twenty years. I have my own on and off relationship with Law and Order, usually on, so I was hoping for something I would really understand. (Yes, I realize that getting excited about actually being up to date on something Mr. Fish would write about means that I am a bit ignorant of the world around me except for TV and makes me sound like a bit of an idiot. So sorry.)

He doesn't really say anything I found interesting, just kind of what he thinks Dick Wolfe thought about society and how to keep an audience, which is nothing ground breaking.
Mostly I am just wondering about how many episodes Fish has seen in his lifetime. He writes as if he has sat through his share of the marathons. I kind of hope so actually. If he could become a high and mighty critic and theorist with daytime television mucking up his brain, then perhaps there is hope for me still.

Then again, I have found that the majority of his theory essays are extremely redundant of themselves. Like Law and Order, his ideas have the same format, different and usually interesting examples, but ultimately we know where it ends up. If we are what marathons we watch, do I get to be America's next top model? Or do I just turn into the psycho Tyra Banks?

Well, Good thing for Fish that there is no rule, that I know of, that keeps a person from plagiarizing from their own papers. I guess I am grateful for that, too. I would not have gotten through some horribly procrastinated papers if I didn't steal from my older papers. (If this confession gets me in trouble, I was kidding about that last sentence to make Mr. Fish feel better.)
I actually like his argument for how we should teach against plagiarizing, and his follow up as well.

say crack again

We ate tater tots at some point this afternoon.

PJ: What's this?
Me: Well, I believe you know.
PJ: Crack?!
Me: Yes, crack. Crack tots.
PJ: Good. I love me some crack tots.
Me: Like a crack baby. Crack babies grow up to be crack tots.


PS: The ocean ate my phone and there is officially no bringing it back. Bleh.

For today

Pro:  Dreams. 

PJ dreamed that he assisted Zach Galifianakis with a grocery store shoplifting heist, I dreamed that I was with Edward Cullen and had to drive stick shift to avoid the bad vampires. Surprise: I am really good at driving stick in my dreams.

Con:  The movie "Dear John". 

It was the waste of time I expected, so I guess that is my fault. I did like Tatum's hair all parted and old school, but the movie, not very good. Most scenes look taken straight out of "The Notebook".

 Who is writing who?! Well, who the heck knows now. It's getting all Midsummer Night's Dream up in here. It looks to me like Channing is pimping it up with both ladies while Ryan is too busy rowing that boat to deal with letters.

 Good thing they figure it all out in the same rain storm. I hope they are kissing the right ones.

Just to get on Sparks' case a bit more, he is king of the dead-dog-story. I dare him to move his audience without people dying.  Triple dog dare. I'm sure I will write more about my distaste for writers who lean too much on this later.

A book nook, look

I tend to first judge a place by whether or not it would be a good book reading spot. This makes me intrinsically love libraries with ottomans, big windows, and generously sized side tables.
Another lovable place is a bright, preferably vacant, living room, mostly because it is right next to the kitchen and reading while eating is a joy that should always be a priority. I acquired the habit of eating cheeto puffs with a fork while reading The Return of the King. You can't turn a page with orange fingers! It is actually quite a skill; if you don't do it just right the cheeto breaks in half or you end up with a bowl of cheeto dust. Subsequently, I always see hobbits in my mind when I eat cheetos.
I will now repress my urge to further digress. ooh Rhyme!

What I have been craving is my room. A good bedroom has always been my favorite reading place. Being on vacation is wonderful, and the beach is way up there on my favorite reading spots list.  But I like having all my own blankets, my pillow that actually fits me, even just looking up from my book to see my own pictures, hairbrush, or jacket.

This is obviously not my room, but I wish it was. I found it here, which is lovely, but has become a time sucker for me. Of course that doesn't deter me in the slightest.

Anyway, this room is, to me, a perfect reading bedroom. Great window and light, handy shelves, pillows, ceiling fan, chair/ottoman to change it up from the bed that is in its own nook. A nook bed! A book nook bed. Oh, I want a nook bed almost as much as I want a library with a rolly ladder.

I like this one too, but not as much. It is more like a window seat in an office, which is still wonderful. And the window looks like it could easily sneak a boy in to enjoy the window seat with, which is uh, totally not the first thing I thought upon seeing this picture.
So, go find a good nook and read, or you know, something. 
And, none of my nook talk is to be associated with that electronic book nook thing. Real paper all the way, I don't care how many trees I take out with me. It smells so good. And you can't write with pen on a "nook". And if anyone saw you sniffing one, they would commit you.
 Good gracious, I better end now. I'm just a bag full of too many digressions today.

Our heads could do with filling, with some interesting stuff

The School In August

By Philip Larkin 

The cloakroom pegs are empty now,
And locked the classroom door,
The hollow desks are lined with dust,
And slow across the floor
A sunbeam creeps between the chairs
Till the sun shines no more.

Who did their hair before this glass?
Who scratched 'Elaine loves Jill'
One drowsy summer sewing-class
With scissors on the sill?
Who practised this piano
Whose notes are now so still?

Ah, notices are taken down,
And scorebooks stowed away,
And seniors grow tomorrow
From the juniors today,
And even swimming groups can fade,
Games mistresses turn grey.

My house woke up early today. I made lunches while eating breakfast.
It is the first day of school today for Rosie and PJ, the first day of their junior and senior years.

This poem came to my mind yesterday and will not leave me alone today. I can't complain too much, Philip Larkin is most often wonderfully biting. But I must be getting old if this is on my mind. I'm just thinking about how I miss having an exciting and scary first day of school. I miss caring so much, taking the entire week before to plan my outfit.

I miss that bucket of emptiness in my stomach that grew even bigger right before going into each classroom because I didn't know who was in the class with me. I miss it becoming filled with some form of helium if I saw my best friends or a cute boy, or filled with mushy mashed potatoes if there was no one I knew or just that one guy who didn't wash his hair.

I'm nostalgic for newness and exciting change.
But Emy, aren't you still in school? Aren't you going to start a new semester soon? Don't you get to go to new classes every semester and even a new ward every year?
Yes yes and yes.
BUT,
Going to class is not new anymore, going to the singles ward is not new anymore. In other words, I no longer have an empty stomach on the first day of class. It's filled with comfortable fluff. In the last few years the fluff has been slowly filtering in. I mistook it for bravery, courage, even maturity and welcomed it on in. I am braver, I have more courage, I am more mature. But the fluff is different. I now see it for what it really is: complacency. I don't think it has necessarily been all bad for me; I do have to get all my credits and get my degree and that takes some time.
 But the fluff is old.
Grey.

I don't want to get stuck in nostalgia, as too many do when they are at the end of a portion of their life. I cannot forget to allow the good kind of empty space back in.
 I want a chance to be filled with new things again. The exciting helium, the disappointing mashed potatoes, maybe even unpredictable waves, folds of silk, or blue and green pebbles.

Just pick one!

If you've ever wondered what type of guy is best for you, or what type of guy you are, look no further. I have them all worked out for you. Just pick one!

Straight from the brains of Erin and myself at the age of about fifteen hopped up on campfire smoke, no sleep, dirty hair, and all the other joys of girls camp.

Philip, Paul, Loser, and Josh.

Ammon, Seth, and Sebastein.

Johnny, and Unknown ("the one").

These were the only boys we could get that week, it had nothing to do with the fact that we dressed like psychos.

Can you tell I've been reorganizing old photos?