"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"

Ranking high on my this-is-a-problem-that-you-NEED-to-fix list is my superability to lose things.  So it was no surprise when I couldn't find my iPhone this morning.  I went through the usual cushion searching routine, swept all the nooks, and retraced my steps with no avail.  Since I do this so often, I've perfected my technique- a crucial part of which is to not be alarmed.  So I wasn't, until 5 hours later of full-on hardcore searching.  Realizing the possibility of my phone being kidnapped by intelligent mice in need of technology- and my fast-approaching thai food and comic book date- I decided to venture out in the wilderness with no means of communication.  (My mom declined my homing pigeon proposition.)

I felt

really cool.

"Oh look at me, just taking a walk on the wild side, my mom isn't even GPSing me right now, I'm such a mysterious woman..."

After a long day of adventuring and discovering the endangerment of the pay phone species,

I came home to an empty house.  Using the landline that I forgot existed, I tried to locate my mom.

"Oh...are you on the landline?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because...I still don't know where my phone is."

"You haven't seen it yet?"

"Nope."

"Really? Have you looked on the counter?"

All atwitter at the prospect of my phone being discovered, I became a speedy demon to reach the counter.  Only to discover it had been completely demolished.  Seriously.  I was waiting for them to come home with the story, expecting something about it either being ran over in the street or smooshed by an ACME anvil.  Instead I went on Facebook and found  this:

I suppose this was a fair way to respond, seeing as how I recently informed her that I broke my glasses:

Apparently my phone was so wedged into the mechanisms that they had to use tongs and things to get it out.  At the scene where the body was found, I foundered powdered shards of glass, hand-swept into a little horrifying pile by one of the feet. To all this I would like to give a big ooooooooooohhhhhh well.  And a smile, with a tiny bit of an eyeroll/headshake. 

ALSO

I just bought my plane ticket for college orientation.  

                                            eek.

Speaking of wasting of money,

I bought another comic today.  But it was on sale.  So that justifies it.

Due to some hardcore self-pitying today, helping out the high school drum line, and painting my nails all pretty, I haven't made time to read any further than the very first page 

WHICH SEEMED VERY INTENSE.

Speaking of very intense things, 

Nail art.  Oh my goodness.  The Daily Nail has been melting my face. Her creativity, detail, humor, and geekdom make her and her blog quite nifty.  Inspired, Megan used her nail-polish-hoarding tendencies to grace my life and make my nails looks all cool, all while we were gawking at The Daily Nail's unyielding awesome.  Whatever Megan touches, it magically becomes cute and decorated.   That being said, all of the gross smudged nails are my work (such as the bleeding Spiderman on my thumb) Not much of a finished product, but we plan on practicing more!

On a final and mildly victorious note, I recieved my Young Women's Medallion!  It's basically a girl Eagle Scout award, except

10 mile snow hikes: sleeping in comfy air-conditioned cabins::projects involving mounting deer heads and chopping wood:projects involving baking cookies for old people and painting nice quotes on chopped wood.

For reals though, it was a hoot.  I enjoyed the program and learned a lot.  It encouraged general goodwill out of me and got me goal-setting.  Plus, something pretty and sentimental came out of it.

"And now Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."

Why my mom is great:

Despite the fact that she has had little or no interest in Harry Potter, she's always supported my sister and I wholeheartedly in our geekdom.  She even let us decorate with a window scene in the last movie's honor (pretty extensive, but this is how we get our thrills).

 I often ramble on play-by-plays of my favorite moments and swoon at my favorite quotes or talk through how I interpret the philosophy of it- all while she's tapping away on her laptop in order to bring home bacon (I think that's the phrase). Soon, I came to the disheartening conclusion that she wasn't interested and that I should probably shut up and let her focus.

Just when I thought that The DaVinci Code would be the only literature she'd read during my childhood, she read the whole Twilight saga!...in just four days!  It required a small break from sunlight and bacon-bringing, but I suppose it's all for the cause.  Though this new fascination was slightly nauseating (mostly because the movies played in our house for a while), it also gave me new hope. I decided to try again. 

Unfortunately, the new gusto in my attempts went unnoticed...but not by my brother, Chris. He became obsessed. We would have movie marathons, pausing only for long background discussions and embellishments.  Though he's never read the books (I'm pretty sure the only book he's read is Holes, bless his heart), he's become pretty proficient in trivia in all the details of the plot.

When he moved in with my other brother, Josh, he soon turned Josh onto the movies, too.  My sister-in-law and four nephews caught on as well.  

There are three primary advantages to this:

1. My adorable nephews speaking in actually-pretty-good British accents while fighting with Transformers

2. The youngest one, not able to talk yet, trying his hardest to cast spells by enthusiastically pointing forks and exclaiming his best guesses at English. He sounds a bit like Donny from Wild Thornberry's.

But mostly,

3. My mom finally being convinced to watch the movies and read the books!  Right now as I type, we are watching the Prisoner of Azkaban and my sister is explaining the genesis of Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.  It's a pretty happy day.

My attendance to see Deathly Hallows part 2 was everything and more. 












I'm never too picky when it comes to the Harry Potter movies, or really any books-turned-into-movies.  There are many reasons why, but ultimately it's not very sensible or sensical and goes against my Optimism Code.  I found the whole movie to be beautifully done. I loved the increase of darkness and light in the movie.  

I loved when they put the Cornish Pixies in the Room of Requirement. It was such a tiny little thing that sent me smiling about how much I love the whole series. In that one moment, they contrasted the monumental bloody battle alongside the whimsical struggles with a once-sane Lockhart. It just made me really happy.  And that's what I love about the series. 

Harry recites "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" and the credits open up.  Interrupted by her own yawns, my mom asks if we can watch the fourth and fifth movies tomorrow night.  She then makes her way to bed muttering something about "really starting to get into it..." "thought there had to be something up with the rat.." I have a feeling we'll get all the way to the sixth.

On a cryptic note, 

I've been feeling a lot of anxiety for my new future, mostly fueled by fear of how my past will affect it.  But due to recent events and plenty of thinking time, I've been approaching peace at an alarming rate.  With all that changes with time, I can't expect to change with it (good or bad) unless I make an effort.  I know that there are times when goodbyes seem hopelessly evident, but there's always the chance that a start from the beginning is in order. And yes, even with the more hopeful goodbyes, there will be an inevitable Cornish Pixie to remind me of the nuisance and victory. And that is quite alright.

Rollback

It was about this time last year when I purchased The United States of Walmart from the clearance rack at Half-Priced Books (yes, I am a two-fold cheapster).  It discussed the general silliness that comes with being the force Walmart has grown to be and summoned the angry Janis Joplin inside of me.  I became disgusted, fascinated, but mostly amused with Walmart and all the horrendous trivia it has to offer.  
A little later, I attended my first day of summer school.  


I am a big fan of summer school.  Don't get me wrong- I'm a total school-loving geek.  It's just that I'm a pretty fast learner.  If I can get the knowledge (as Arizona schools define (settle down Janis!)) down in a few weeks, it would be more efficient to leave my schedule open for electives, like band and theatre, that require extended time with a team.  Fast-paced interactive approach to American History > short, daily amount of time filled with busy work... longing for improv.  Of course, this is all up for debate.
So, this particular year, I was taking American History and P.E.
Fun-in-the-sun with strangers for a few weeks > walking around the school once a day with an occasional basketball/trying to justify online bowling. When I showed up, I came across none other than my two good pals who were, at the time, only slightly familiar peers that I recognized as being in Speech & Debate.  





Somewhere, between surprisingly intense volleyball/basketball games, that one girl always fainting, or the free thanks-for-offering-but-we're-only-going-to-pretend-to-eat-it lunches from the neighboring elementary school, I spoke with these two new pals about all I had learned about Walmart.  


Either because they were interested or because they were trying to find a polite way to ask me to shut up already,  they suggested that I join Speech & Debate, because everything I was saying would make a good "Expos", whatever that meant. They then proceeded to explain to me all the glory and adventure of high school forensics.  


I had almost joined the team since freshman year and often helped practice with team members.  I even went to a competition my junior year, pleasantly surprised at the lack of reverence and the surplus or organic snack foods.  


I decided I would drop theatre and officially do the whole Speech & Debate thing in an effort to not have any high school regrets. (hah!)
I ended up doing (and only doing...) a poetry program based on Walmart.  It was pretty difficult trying to force myself to make time for the tournaments and I only went to 4 of them.  But! I managed to scrape up third place in my first competition.  The first effect being a happy-skipping time in on and around Applebee's- the second being an even further lack of interest in practicing or pantsuit-buying.  


When I say I loved Speech and Debate, for truly I did, I think I mostly loved watching.  
I loved being surrounded by incredible talent and seeing my friends completely open up.  A big bonus was the tender totally-inappropriate way one of the coaches, Tracy, would sooth my furrowed brow and comb my hair for me.  I had other people tell me stories.  I also loved sixth-hour at school with our other coach Meg. Though we would mostly always sort of get things done, we would primarily provoke, return and absorb Meg's stupendous laughter.


As I aimlessly stalk through Walmarts in late-night hours with obligatory things in my cart, I am reminded, not only of the marketing-loserishness I feed, but of the sort of not-loserishness that is Speech & Debate.  


P.S. The night shift is starting to recognize me at the Neighborhood Market Walmart.  How bad it this?  Am I right for sort of justifying myself in the fact that it's a neighborhood market?

on my shoulders

At my request, my wonderful mother and I planted some Mammoth Sunflowers this season. They were so great! A very bouncy sun jungle in our front yard. The splashes of yellow and the ornate shape of the leaves kept it a fairly happy sight, even as they started to droop with the weight of their own seeds.  Which means it's time to harvest!

My sister and I went on a tour through Europe with the Ambassadors of Music.  The whole trip was stunning, of course.  One of my favorite parts was driving from France to Switzerland, wondering why all the fields were a bright yellow, only to realize that we were driving through sunflower farms.  Even the neighboring cottages had the 10-foot flowers rivaling their short roofs, towering over their clotheslines.  Sunflowers are naturally a happy sight, but  their sight combined with this memory makes each sunflower an instant smile. First, I recognized this opportunity as a perfectly good excuse to use my mom's meat cleaver and began hacking at a thick stalk (there were some war cries involved). Then we took the seeds out, similar to the way you'd take the seeds out of a pomegranate, and rinsed them.  At this stage, they're super tender and shiny and, apparently, a delicacy!  But we decided to roast them, because that's half the fun. (medium low heat until the shells begin to harden)

You know, today turned out sunny in a lot of ways!  (Fun Fact- a lot:100::a dozen:12)

Along with this sunflower time, my sister and I played a song in church called "There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today". Honestly, this hymn is generally not one of my favorites because of its slight hokey-ness. But, because of all the good feelings it gave me today, I guess any hard feelings towards the bouncy march are gone.  Then after church, my sister and I watched Tangled! AND my shoulders got sunburned! AND John Denver's "Sunshine" came up on my iPod shuffle! All these experinces together made today quite sunny.  Not in the scary-kill-you-slowly-gaseous way, but I guess you weren't going to guess that anyway. (Fun Fact- "anyways" is not a word)

Today, it was Spiderman.

Perhaps it is my ever-love for cartoons
or perhaps it is my new friendship with a boy who sometimes refers to himself as Batman
or perhaps it is how awesome the local comic book store, Gotham City, is.


I have a budding fascination for comic books.


One of my many awfulnesses (they're all endearing, so don't you worry!) is my nail-biting habit.  Luckily, over the years, I have confined the fowl beastliness to the duration of intense movies/crime shows. Or really suspenseful Pixar moments. Today, while reading my shiny recommended edition of The Amazing Spiderman: The Death of Gwen Stacy, indeed, though I am ashamed to admit, I had begun a nail-biting frenzy.  Though this was disheartening to some level, it was nowhere near the peaks and valleys my heart swooped with Peter Parker and his urban swings to conquer the tragically psychotic Green Goblin.

However, I was first introduced to Superman.

... I think Lois Lane ruined him for me.  

As if her snark and flooz wasn't enough, she then shoots Superman with kryptonite because she feels that he might be up to something.

Seriously? He's Superman! When he's up to something, it's to save the planet.

In reality, he was making her a birthday present: his powers for a day.

Seriously? You're Superman! And you don't care (probably distracted by Ms. Lane's low-cut-drawn blouses) how much time you're wasting while Lex Luthor plots his escape? Knowing fully that he has led you to your your imminent radiation-caused death?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that even super men have a bucket list (and a bucket full of hormones),

but Lois Lane? 

Also, I thought it was kind of cocky of him to make robot clones or himself.  An awesome butler would've been nice.


Oh, Superman.  Perhaps he is craftier than I think.  Maybe he was purposefully awful in my first-ever comic book in his plot to squelch out my new want, in an effort to save me time and money (and dignity?).


Fortunately, the man at the comic book store assured me that hating and loving different heroes is 
"what it's all about".  Hopefully I'll see him soon for a good Batman comic.

calling this "genesis" would be a bit dramatic

I know most people just find ways to deal with the heat, but I honestly love it.  I don't know what it is, but when my cheap Wal-Mart flip flops melt into the desert's asphalt, my heart does too.  


However.


I'm moving away to college.  To Cache Valley, Utah.  
It's basically a little ice cave, except filled with less abominable snowmen and more cheese. 


So, I created this blog to complain and rejoice during the time of my transition in hopes that, with time, I'll find enough reasons to love Arctic-wasteland-cold in the same way that I love lava-desert-hot. 


I guess we'll see how it goes.