while listening to carrie underwood's "what can i say"

Wind gathers speed and careens through the canyon,
Whips my hair and plasters it on my sticky, sweaty face,
Wildly slaps my cheeks and pulls me to the right.
While I finger the buttons on my iPod
We don't talk, don't acknowledge one another's presence.
Walk slowly. Wait for the right moment to say the right thing.
Wind gathers speed.

the candle that flickers last

The candle that flickers last lights the room
in dimness. Creepers lurk in quiet corners,
down empty halls, through crimson curtains,
muffling and hiding whispering warners.

The candle that flickers last breathes a sigh,
heats the skin that devils prick.
But glowing embers can't hid this flame
that floats lonely atop wax and wick.

The candle that flickers last goes out.
Ghostly fibers of smoke rise,
cobalt threads swirl to the ceiling
and enhance the disguise.

Shattered shards of glass.
Dark dispersing fast.
Iridescent mask.

appropriate uses for washer fluid

Canadian bacon sizzles in grease on the stove.
Mangos ripen as we speak, in delectable salsa on the table.
Powdered sugar makes Mom sneeze into the pie.
We'll still eat it.
Mom calls us to dinner.

An absent car.
A garage floor of old oil.
Dad's fixing the jalopy again.
Backfires, toot-toots of horns, screeching breaks--
and the loud rumble of the garage door closing.

I call Dad in to eat,
but he doesn't answer.
Out on the porch I bellow to him,
but he doesn't answer.
I stomp to the garage
and rap on the dented metal,
but he doesn't answer.

"Daddy?"
He looks up from the hood
with grease on his face
and rusty screws between his teeth.
In his hand is a bottle of green liquid.
"Don't want to get down the road
with no way to clean the windshield."

Impatient huffs, hungry gurgles, and rolling eyes
don't make him hurry any faster.

randomly, beastly, kissingly decisions

Sad news. The nurse from the famous V-J Day photo died on Tuesday. She was 91 years old. The story behind the picture--she didn't know the sailor who grabbed her and kissed her. What a kiss from a total stranger! I would be okay with that! This photo was deemed the best "kissy" photo of all time by the girls of Colonial Apartment 501. And we were pretty much the experts on kissy photos and movies.

Last weekend I had the unique opportunity to have a makeover done, and it was for FREEEEEEE! (reference to Bedtime Stories). Mom entered me into a contest, and I won. I guess she wrote something about me, but she hasn't let me read it yet. The stylist was Audrey Lynn Fuller, who my mom used to babysit, though she is now Audrey Pentico. I was there for three hours in which time she cut and styled my hair, did my makeup, and gave me a heavenly facial. It was a little nerve-racking at first, but I warmed up to it. I am very happy with the results, although it means I have to wake up earlier in the morning to do my hair and makeup. I haven't been so good at that this semester.

I had another unique experience just yesterday. I received a phone call from a student from the University Relations Department last week, and she invited me to Tuesday's devotional luncheon. The school hosts a luncheon every Tuesday before devotional, and it's only for a small group of people. There were about ten (randomly selected) students there, along with a woman from the University Relations Department, Kevin Miyasaki (the Dean of Students), President and Sister Clark (BYU-I president), and Elder and Sister Winkel (former member of the Seventy and the devotional speaker). We sat around a big table and introduced ourselves. It was pretty intimidating to be sitting in the company of these seemingly untouchable "celebrities" and sharing my life history. President Clark then asked for questions. The conversation immediately turned to... you guessed it... dating and marriage. What else? That's all we talk about at BYU-Idaho! Actually, the conversation was really good. One girl said the she is frustrated because guys just want to hang out, and she wants to date. She asked what she can do to encourage boys to date instead of hang out. One of the Winkels (I don't remember which one) said that it's okay to refuse when boys want to hang out, but that we also need to say things like "How about we just go on a date instead?" and not give them the option to fall into the hanging out rut. It makes sense, I guess, but easier said than done. Sister Clark, however, said that the most important thing we can do is be happy. I thought this advice was great. She went on to say that boys are attracted to happy girls. She encouraged us to not sit around and wait to get married, but to pursue education and careers, and marriage and family will fall into place; of course she also cautioned us against getting totally consumed by education and careers. I guess what I appreciated most about her advice is the fact that she didn't meet and marry President Clark until after she had graduated from BYU. It gives me hope, and it reconfirms my decision to continue working for my degree and career.

One more month of school. The summer weather is upon us, and to use a phrase coined by my nephew Talmage, it's "beastly hot." I am SOOO ready to be done with this semester! Love it. But must end it now before I die of summer-itis!

it was mustard the whole time!

This last weekend I skipped out on Friday's creative writing class to go on the Meadow Park Branch Super Activity. It was totally worth it! We met at the church at 5:30 Friday morning to take a charter bus to St. George. We made a few stops on the way down. First we stopped at a gas station in Nephi to have breakfast. While there, Steph and I found giraffe puppets that, of course, we had to buy. Steph named hers Nephi. I named my Lemuel. :) Well, Zoram Lemuel, but he goes by his middle name. I thought I was pretty funny. We then went to Cove Fort. I had never been there before, but it was a great experience. It was run by President Hinckley's grandfather as a fort for travelers to be safe from Native American attacks. We saw the little house where President Hinckley's father, Bryant, lived as a boy, a cute little cabin with a digital "13.00" in the window. I said that meant 13 minutes until it blew up. We stopped somewhere south of Beaver for lunch. (I only remember Beaver because I had a friend from Beaver, and his high school mascot was the beaver, so they were the Beaver Beaver's.)

Our final stop was at this cute little house, except it wasn't so little, where we stayed Friday night. I slept in a bedroom with my good friends Kim and Sheena, while Steph slept across the hall with our friend Jeannette. It was HOT, but luckily we had small air conditioners in our bedrooms. From our house we walked a couple blocks to the St. George Temple, the whole purpose for this trip. Our branch goes to different temples and we take a picture with a little figurine of Angel Moroni called Meadow Park Moroni. Most of the group did sealings, while some of us did baptisms. The baptistery was really cool because it was so old. One of the temple workers told us that earlier that day they had had a stack of names come through of royalty. They had the son of some big king, the 85th Irish king, and a name from 130 B.C. How cool is that?!

That evening we got back on the bus to go to Tuacahn Amphitheatre. We had a Golden Corral dinner there and watched some little girls dance provocatively on a stage (I seriously couldn't believe the dances these elementary-aged girls were doing). We sat for a while and talked, and then we went into the theater to see Tarzan, the musical based off of the Disney movie. It was incredible. My only complaint was that it took too long for them to hook themselves onto the ropes to swing across the stage. I think they need to figure out another way of doing that. Towards the end of the play it started raining, which isn't so good for an outdoor theater. I am sad to say that a lot of people left. It was probably hard for the cast because it was opening night of the show, and about half the audience was gone before the end. Some of us stuck it out, and I was really glad we did. Washingtonians do everything in the rain! :)

Saturday morning came early after a long day and late night, but I managed to get up and be completely ready to go before the bus picked us up. We went to breakfast and then drove to Zion's National Park. I hadn't been there since I was bigger (a little LaMar humor), and I was amazed at how beautiful it was. The weather was gorgeous. A large portion of our group hiked Angel's Landing, a very difficult hike. Three people have died on it in the last year. Luckily, everyone who went up in our group came back down alive and unharmed. The rest of us went on smaller hikes. I went with Steph, Kim, Jeannette, Brianna, and President & Mama Moyes (all from the Branch) to the Emerald Pools. It was a good hike--not too strenuous but enough to be sore for the next few days. Just as we were finishing our hike it started to rain. We ate lunch and then headed over to the gift shops. I walked around for a little bit, but I was cold and tired, so I went back to the bus. Once everyone was back we left for home.

The best part of the trip was the ride home. I took a few naps here and there, but mostly I just sat and listened to the people around me. The group I was sitting with started playing the one-word story game. Eventually I joined in. We started out with a nonsense story, but then we decided to tell a fairytale. That one didn't work out so well. So then we started a mystery. It was about a girl named Amy (one of the girls in our group) who goes into her sauna to find Richard dead with a knife in his back. The knife belonged to her ex, but we didn't know which ex it was. As the story unfolded, we discovered that Amy had an ex-husband, ex-lover, ex-father-in-law, ex-lover, and ex-fiance. She also had a current father-in-law (though strangely no husband) named Craig, and two dogs--the Elf-speaking Jeff (one of the boys in our group) and the diseased Carl. We also had a mailman and a man named Mustard. Richard ended up being the ex-husband, Mustard was the ex-lover, and the mailman was the ex-fiance. In the end Jeff revealed Mustard to be the murderer. The plot was very detailed. We told the story for about three hours. We wanted to keep going, but a couple people on the bus wanted to watch The Princess Bride. We were all kind of irritated because we wanted to continue telling our story, but we had to stop for the two people who ended up watching the movie. While most of the story was elaborate, the ending was very rushed so they could start the movie. We all got so into the the plot, and we were theorizing what would happen, who the murder was and his motive, we were bringing in new characters and objects, and although we were the ones creating the story, we were still trying to "figure it out." I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Our story has been quite the Facebook topic, and when Jeff spoke in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday he said, "I'm sorry my talk isn't prepared so well. Carl was supposed to help me write it, but he was diseased or something." Those of us who had been involved in the story busted up. Later, in the Sunday School lesson, another comment was made about Carl. This story will not be quickly forgotten!

i don't believe you

I was going through some old emails today, and I found this one that I thought was pretty fun. I'm sure you've all seen it before, but I thought it was clever and I wanted to try it out. You put your iPod on shuffle and then click the next button to answer each of the questions:

1. What would you say if someone asks "Is this okay?"? "Everywhere"

2. What would best describe your personality? "3 A.M." :-D

3. What do you like in a guy/girl? "Who'll Stop the Rain"

4. How do you feel today? "That's How You Know"

5. What is your life's purpose? "Black and White People"

6. What is your motto? "The Driveway"

7. What do your friends think of you? "Making Memories of Us"

8. What do you think of your parents? "Even Superman"

9. What do you think about very often? "Better Together"

10. What is 2+2? "Shimmer"

11. What do you think of your best friend? "Stand"

12. What do you think of the person you love? "I Have a Dream/Thank You for the Music"

13. What do your parents think of you? "Wild Blue Nights" :-) Am I really that wild?

14. What will you dance to at your wedding? "Imagine"

15. What will they play at your funeral? "She's So High" :-)

16. What is your hobby/interest? "There's Gotta Be More to Life"

17. What is your biggest secret? "Hot N Cold"

18. What do you think of your friends? "Cry"

19. What's the worst thing that could happen? "So Small"

20. How will you die? "Bad Day" :-) Obviously, it will be a bad day!

21. If you could go back in time, what would you change? "I'm Like a Bird" :-D Not that I'm like a bird, but the whole bird scenario in general!

22. What hurts right now? "Route 66"

23. What will you title this? "I Don't Believe You"

i can see clearly now...

I know it's been awhile. My life has been very crazy in many ways. But things are going great. I have more good days than bad--that hasn't happened since I was about in seventh grade. I am amazed at what the right combination of meds does for my mood. I know I have truly been blessed.

At the start of the semester I only had two roommates, Stephanie and Taylor. We each had our own room, which was so nice. Last week two girls, Briana and Sam, moved in from another apartment, so Stephanie moved back into my room so that they could share a room. Stephanie is great. We have a lot in common: both 23, both English education majors, both juniors who should be seniors, both love cats, both read and love young adult books, both spent a lot of our childhood in Western Washington, both have the same taste in music, both in families of seven...the list goes on. This weekend we drove to Utah together because she was visiting her sister in South Weber.

So far I have made about six trips back to Utah just this semester. I know that seems like a lot...it is a lot. But it has been a lot of fun. I have only attended my campus ward twice this semester, though next weekend will be the third. Like last semester, I meet with my bishop weekly, though, so he knows me very well and knows that I'm going to my singles' branch at home. I went home all but one week in the month of May.

The first weekend was for Andra's wedding. It was so fun! Ashley Thornton flew down from Washington, and she, Stephanie, and I attended all the wedding festivities. We were invited to the pre-wedding family dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The food was delicious, and we felt so special that we were invited to such a special night. The next morning we went to the temple to see Andra come out of the temple. She was absolutely beautiful, and so happy. That evening we went to the reception at her grandma's house. The three of us took turns sitting by "the book." Sarah and Mariah McGough came to the reception, so we were able to get a Colonial 501 reunion picture. It was so fun to catch up.

The next weekend I went home for Mother's Day. I brought my cousins Alex and Marc down from BYU-Idaho with me. Grammy, Gary, and Debi flew in and Rod, Jake, and Luke drove from Boise and stayed at our house. Alex spent his time with Eric, whose wife had a baby the week before. Dan and Tauna also flew in. We spent a lot of time listening to and laughing at Dan's and Gary's stories. They were so great! My mom and her brothers gave Grammy a new set of scriptures for Mother's Day. They each wrote a note in age order in the beginning, leaving a blank page for Teresa. It was very special.

The following weekend Mom and Stephanie flew to Washington for Liliana's first birthday and Rochelle's first ballet recital, so I drove down to spend the weekend with Dad. I ended up not seeing much of him, though, because he was on call and I was sick and in bed most of the time. We did watch Sherlock Holmes together, and another night we ordered pizza.

After a weekend in Rexburg, I went back to Utah for Memorial Day. Mom and Dad went to St. George for the weekend, and Paul spent a lot of time with his girlfriend Kimi, so Stephanie and I spent some time together. I played about a bazillion games of Text Twist on AddictingGames.com and watched quite a few movies. I watched Dear John with Stephanie and our friend Sheena. Steph and I later watched Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, based off of two books called Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging and On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God. Don't worry, they're not as inappropriate as they sound! Well, I haven't read the second one, but the first one isn't as bad as it sounds. It's actually a hilarious book. The movie was cute. We also watched 17 Again and Earth, which is basically a shorter version of Planet Earth. We previewed it for Stephanie to show in class. It was very interesting. And lastly, I watched the 1950s version of Titanic. It had the dad from the original Cheaper By the Dozen and the maid from Pillow Talk. I was happy to see faces that I knew. I know, me being excited about that makes me a movie-freak, but I like being this way!

Hope you all are doing well! Bye for now!