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?

Hey Harry

Today is Harry Potter's birthday!!!

When I was thirteen and reading books 1-4 I had the biggest crush on him. In my opinion, it is/was my weirdest literary crush. Even in my reading mind, I thought he looked doofy, yet endearing, like this.

It makes sense to feel fluttery over Legolas who had a perfect face and didn't have to sleep, or Aragorn who was all rugged and fought evil and became king, or the foriegn hottie in the Traveling Pants book, Mr. Rochester's brooding intensity, Mr. Darcy's everything. This barely hints at my many literary romances, and I'll just leave it at that because I already sound weird and creepy.
And possibly lonelybitteroldcatlady-ish.

Anyway, at age thirteen I loved Harry. It wasn't even just the whole I love the books and magic stuff. Come on, he was a brave and witty fella. And he did get attractive enough in the movies later on, which was kind of legitimizing of my childhood crushing,

Then later on he got older and beef neck y. Too bad. We don't need a picture of that.

I have had more book boyfriends than I can count. I am, however, of the belief that my tastes have refined through the years, and someday I'm sure those tastes will actually find a person outside of books who will make me feel as happy, excited, safe, and insatiably interested all at once.
Yes, I have moved past getting my heart in too much of a twitter over Harry.
Though I guess that doesn't stop me from hoping he, in all his literary existance, sees me like this and will give me a call.

 Again, Happy Birthday Harry Potter, I am glad you will never actually age and die.
Also, Happy late birthday to Daniel Radcliff who shares the same July 23rd birthday with me. If that doesn't create cosmic significance in my life, nothing does. 

Dear void,

by: myself

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void."

 - Kathleen Kelly in "You've Got Mail"

mmmk mommykins

My mother called me today, after texting five pictures of her puppy.
At some point in the conversation this happend:

mom- Emy, can you send me your resume?
me- No I will not, but why?
mom- So I can get you a job out here. (Texas)
me- Firstly, if I was moving out there and needing a job, you could tell me where I could, myself, send my resume. Second, I'm in college still, it starts up again soon, and I am going to go do that, you know, go to school, in Utah. Third, I never want to live in Texas.
mom- Oh ok ok. So you graduate soon?
me- yes, very soon.
mom- What are you getting a degree in?
me- Really? I've told you about every month for four years what my major is.
mom- Math right? It's not (disgusted) teaching is it?
me- No Mom. English. I am getting a degree in English. I study literature and writing.
mom- Oh Emy, remember, you are so smart, it should be math or scientist.
me- Thanks mom, I'll think about it.

Growing up sometimes

My birthday was lovely thankyouverymuch. I felt that my life had come very "full circle", as this was my first birthday back in the place I was born.

To start: me as a youngn' in Hawaii. Hellz ya I was cute.

Fast forward. Turning 19 with my best friend Erin at the Pacific Life aquarium. 

Turning 20. I had three birthday cakes that day. Yes, three. The curse of having so many loving me.

The big 21. I guess we decided to celebrate with bangs. 

This year! 22!!

Waiting for the show to start at the PCC.

The show was so awesome and fun. I wish I could dance like them. The guys dancing was great too, it included a lot of shirtless muscle flexing. Yuuup.

Happy Happy Birthday to me indeed. 

Never awkward, always cool. 

I think my hair is getting lighter. 

Making some sort of deep and profound wish. By the way, I'm still eating these cupcakes for breakfast. 

Yay for being older! Please notice that my hair is brushed in honor of the occasion.

I hope you have all enjoyed this splendid display. These are the first pictures I've put up on here! I'm so grown up now.

WHOOOOOOO BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

I am now 22 years old.
Let all celebrate the joy that is ME.
With cake.

Ode to PJ

 I'm thinking that PJ should start an online show. He's crazy, and people online are generally crazy. Tis perfect. Sorry for basically using someone else to entertain you all instead of using my own brain. It is not unlike literary theft, but I won't do it too often, I'm just on vacation right now.

Here he is impersonating a Hawaiian:

Here he is being "Indian"(diversity day anyone?):

I just love PJ. He makes me laugh with stuff like this at least fifteen times a day. I'm very lucky.

Something I already do, but now it is also for you

I am going to start putting some of my continuous "pro/con list of life" up on here now.

Not all the time, that would be insanely boring to many.
Not all parts to it, that would just be "sentimental slop" to all and belongs in my journal, not my blog.

This has, and always will be, an ongoing project. And, as always, the points on the list are "for the current moment". Sometimes the things that are good at one point are bad at different times in your life. Say La Vee.

Pro:
Best friend phone chats
Laughing about funny noises with my sister till I tear up
Salting the cookie sheet to have an even better cookie eating experience
Guilty pleasure of 27 Dresses on TV

Con:
Having to spell the word "tomorrow"
Mild head-ache
Bug bites

Scarves are fancy

I showed my siblings "sassy gay friend" on you tube. The following ensued:



I did not encourage the mild expletive usage. Though I suppose I didn't discourage it either.

To make one glad

This is one of my favorite poems. My absolute favorite depending on the day. It is from Songs of Innocence by William Blake.

On Another's Sorrow

Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast;
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant’s tear;

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give His joy to all;
He becomes an infant small;
He becomes a man of woe;
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

O! He gives to us His joy
That our grief he may destroy;
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

What's that you say?

I went with my family to see fireworks on Sunday night. It was a perfectly warm Hawaiian evening and fireworks pretty much excite me to no end so I loved it. I enjoyed my family as well. In so many ways it is getting easier and easier to do just that. Maybe I'm just maturing and have an increased ability to love or something. Eh.

Some snippets of joy from the evening:


Rosie: (during firework show) I'm bored, why don't they make cooler fireworks.
Me: These ARE cool! They light up the sky, they are shiny and sparkly, they make loud exploding noises, there are ones shaped like flowers, some that split off into fizzy ones, and they are colorful! There is accompanying music, you are drinking mountain dew. And you're bored?!
Dad: It's called chronic malcontentedness. It's a disease.
Rosie: Aw man, I'm just full of diseases then!

PJ: There are three things I fear in this world - Obama, Osama, and Yo Mama!

My family can be such a hoot, really.
Oh blessed independence.

A new favorite

AH! I love words.
I love dictionaries, and I collect them.
Wordnik is the best online dictionary ever. Well, the oxford online has the best etymologies, but you either have to be a student or pay a fee to use it. And sometimes it gets complicated and too wordy (bah hahaha).
Anywho, I love this site. Really and truly. It is easy to use and so fun. The internet has never been better.
So, maybe I stayed up too late because I was on it for hours and hours.
Sign up. It is not hard, I did it.
Make some lists too.
DO IT.

Only in Dreams, I think.

"Alligators were trying to eat me in my dream last night. My dreams are always so weird. I mean it Emy. To put this into perspective, last night I turned into Reese Witherspoon."
-Rosie Guildner

Moroni is a Bad Ass, Part I

I have never read through the war chapters of the Book of Mormon with much enthusiasm. It isn't bad to look for "the lesson" and "principles" in the scriptures. That is what we have them for. But I think that in my diligent search for those things I missed the dramatic parts of stories and the actual history that is written there.

I am currently insatiably interested, for the first time ever. Particularly Alma 43-64. And it is really neat to see how Helaman's narrative shows how interested and impressed he was too. These men are MEN of God with lives that hold stories that are worthy of their names.

Alma 44
In case you need the Recap:
Moroni is leading his people in battle against the bad Lamanites. The Lamanites find themselves at the Mercy of Moroni; He gives them a chance to swear an oath of peace or die. The Lamanites refuse but try to weasel out with "hey just take our weapons and let us go, no BFD ya know". YEAH RIGHT. Moroni is no such fool. He is righteous, he is brave, he is smart.
Moroni is a BAD-ASS.

Alma 44:10
"And now when Zerahemnah had made an end of speaking these words, Moroni returned the sword and the weapons of war, which he had received, unto Zerahemnah, saying: Behold, we will end the conflict."

This is now one of my new favorite lines in all of scripture-dom. I can't believe that I have been reading over this so many times without seeing how great the drama is. How wonderfully epic a story.

In case you don't know the rest, the Lamanites fight some more and end up getting owned by Moroni's army and making the peace oath anyways.

More about Moroni to come, because he deserves it and I can't help it.

You may think you aren't interested, but:

The longest tennis match in history finished today.
Isner beat Mahut in the tie-breaker at 70-68.
Total playing time: 11 hours, 5 minutes.
Aces: Isner had 112 and Mahut had 103.
They be from crazy town, frills.
I'm amazed.

I guess I should be posting about my own life, but this stuff is more interesting to me. For all y'all who think I am MORE interesting, it will interest you to know that I am in Hawaii with my family. I go to the beach everyday, snorkel with fish and turtles, get tan, sometimes sleep in my bathing suit, read a lot, don't wear make-up, and get lots of bug bites, get to be wonderfully warm and never cold.

And sand in my bed. I'm in love.

If you can't write right, at least try.

I hope that I am not the only one who flops with their first attempts at creative writing. This is an attempt I made a couple years ago at a short story, and at maybe being funny. This isn't even how my humor works in real life, which is why it sounds forced. Yes, I learned my lesson. Please pretend to ignore the many cliches, both in sentence choice and in the story itself.
You've been warned:


Birthday Fun


Jack stood outside hesitating to ring the doorbell. A birthday party. Why do all occasions call for a party? Christmas party, New Years party, beach party, Happy Halloween party, my-kid-got-an-A party, I-bought-a-new-dog party. And now, a birthday party: the king of all parties. Dr. Lillard told him that going to at least three parties a month would help cure him. Cure. Serious business if there ever was any.
It was now month seven. Jack really impressed Dr. Lillard when he attended four parties two months ago. However, his written tests indicated little change His medication stayed the same. And he went to parties. Depression needed forcing out with company.

Jack checked the invitation and read the name Elizabeth Clark. She was the wife of his boss’s assistant. He read it over five times to commit it to his memory. The sound of hip hop music inside made him want to run back to his car. He rang the doorbell.
Chris, a younger man from Jack’s office, opened the door. “Come on in,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Jack. “Where I should put the gift?” It was a book that he grabbed from a shelf at Barnes and Nobles. A teenage sales associate said it was getting really popular. Jack figured that that was appropriate.
Chris showed Jake to a small side room and then left. Jack set the wrapped book
down next to the other gifts, box shaped and wrapped in one of the four choices of wrapping paper from Barnes and Nobles.

Jack pulled out a piece of crinkled paper from his inside jacket pocket. It was doctor’s orders to not leave a party until he checked off at least three things.
The list read: Learn four new names; shake hands with five new people; bring a good gift if appropriate; meet the host; ask a person of the opposite sex if you can get her a fresh drink; tell a joke/ make someone laugh; make a business connection.
Refolding the list, he put it back in his pocket. One down, two to go.
He rehearsed the joke about the three blue ducks. Someone would find it funny, or at least laugh at it.

Now to find Mrs. Clark. It wasn’t too difficult. She was wearing a gaudy, pink, feather boa to let everyone know that it was her birthday. She was turning 48. For goodness sakes, didn’t she know that? Did she really think it was a secret? And always talking to Chris and his friends; Chris had so many friends.
Jack stood near the edge of the circle, trying to say hello and how do you do to the men around him. The cigar smoke burned his eyes. Young people shouldn’t be smoking cigars. At the end of Chris’ apparently hilarious punch line and the laughter, Jack asserted himself.
“Good evening Elizabeth.”
“Why hello Mr. …”
“Jack.”
“Oh - Welcome to the party, Jack.” Then she turned back to Chris before he could
say another word. Oh? Oh! For twelve years Jack had worked at the firm, working his way up. They were all the same, with white smiles and hair that they could still part. Guys like Chris come straight out of college and sit in the office just one door over, shaking his hand and trying to show him how to do things. What did they know? How to pick a good suit, that’s all. And computers.

Jack sneezed as he was leaving the crowd. That damned feather boa - where on earth do you even find a thing like that? One of the men was carelessly holding his cigar too close to it. Too close? It could work. Jack looked around. No one was looking at him as usual, and this time he was especially grateful. His list jabbed him once more. That was the sign. Jack gently grabbed the end of the furry snake and placed one feather near the smoke. A second later it began to glow.
Jack moved to the other side of the room, smiling. A real smile. It was much easier than telling that joke about the three ducks. He watched as the men near her cried aloud, and one doused her with a nearby ice bucket. The flames went out. Jack laughed out loud for the first time in seven months.

Jack checked his list: Meet the host, check; bring a gift, check; tell a joke/ make someone laugh, check. Jack couldn’t wait to tell Dr. Lillard that his treatment was finally taking effect.

Bah-dum ching. (canned laughter here).

FORT

So, maybe Nat and I decided to make a fort in our living room while listening to 'NSync. There are twinkle lights and adorable sheets. THE MOST FUN EVER.

What were you doing at 3:30 AM last night?

I was eating a burrito with my best friend Nat.

This burrito is delicious, but it is filling.

Math Time

You must look at this graph to understand what I am going to say next. MmmmK.

My good friend Kevin once told me that the f(x)=1/x graph is a good example of tragic miscommunication.

Sometimes you feel like you are working in the same direction as someone else, but you just miss it, and end up going in opposite directions. You think that things are going to work out, but it doesn't click the way you expected. There is some sort of barrier, an asymptote, that keeps mutual understanding at bay.

I always see this graph in my head now when I don't understand someone, or if I am frustrated while trying to explain something. Damn asymptotes getting in my way of communication.

I also sometimes think about the fact that Kevin said this bit of brilliance seven hours into our road trip from CA at three in the morning.

Now I am thinking about how my friend Tristan was with us on that same trip years ago and is now engaged to be married.

And now I am kind of missing calculus. And the sunglasses I lost on the trip.

Math is a crazy Bih.

Lay and Lie, I love and hate

I was reading Things That Make Us [sic] by Martha Brockenbrough tonight, you know, because I have other homework to do. She talks about how there really is nothing wrong with breaking grammar rules when you do it knowingly and on purpose, like in writing music or poetry for example. However, it is nice when you can sound good and keep the rules so beautifully. I am now in love with so much:

"Consider the example of the Decemberists, a progressive rock band that crafted an album around "The Crane Wife," a Japanese folktale for children. From an artistic standpoint, that idiosyncratic inspiration wallops even the most perfectly curved backside. Then there's this lyric from their song "We Both Go Down Together," which comes from an earlier album titled Picaresque (a distinctive term that means "relating to rogues"):

I found you, a tattooed tramp
A dirty daughter from the labor camps
I laid you down in the grass of a clearing
You wept, but your soul was willing

So not only are they writing literate songs and performing them on an astonishing variety of instruments, they're also using "laid" correctly. They would have earned themselves a hall pass for their fine imagery even if they'd bungled this conjugation, so the care they took to get it right nearly moves us to tears, and then to the position of the official band of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar." (Brockenbrough 235).

Gee wiz I love this so much. I then thought of "Hazards of Love 2" which is also beautiful AND uses "lay" correctly:

I'll lay you down in a clover bed
The stars, a roof above our heads
And we'll lie until the Corn Crake crows
Bereft of the weight of our summer clothes
And I'd wager all
The hazards of love

A set of lyrics that I had already found lovely. I'm just so glad. Please listen to these songs if you haven't, and even if you have.

Anyway, here is the chart I use to help me get it all straight. I never use "lay" and "lie" correctly in speech, but always consult this in writing.

Okay, I'm done with sounding like a pompous ass for now.