Please stop doing things that make me seem like a bitch when I respond to you.

I traveled about 350 blocks two weeks ago to attend a regional YSA meeting. At said (superbly boring) meeting, I was asked to give the opening prayer. Then, it was already on the typed beforehand agenda of the meeting that I was to give the closing prayer, so I gave that prayer as well. No big deal. I love to pray.

Tonight we had another meeting with the same group of people. I was again asked to give the opening prayer. Now, I know I have the wrong attitude about a lot of things, and this is probably one of them, 'pray always' and all of that, but I said "no." Then the girl* who asked me to pray said, "awkward" like it was a precisely timed punchline of a TGIF sitcom from 1992. I then said, "I opened and closed our last meeting, someone else can pray." If there were fewer than five people in our meetings, I would gladly pray as often as asked, but there were twelve people there tonight. Twelve and a few more last time. Other people could and did pray.

*We are so not destined to be besties it's ridiculous. 

At least Anchorage has the excuse of being bitterly cold, like, all the time.

I just saw that SLC was voted the second worst dressed city in America, and with the fewexception of some of my more fashionable friends who live in the Beehive state, it is so true I can't even handle it. (Although I would push for first place.) The people at Travel and Leisure equate this to an over-peppering of polo shirts, but I'd have to submit the true crimes against fashion are sleeved shirts under tanktop dresses, platform flip flops, and a constant borage of tshirts and ill-fitting jeans on men and women, like it's a required uniform. (It actually might be. You can never be too sure when it comes to Utah.)

They also say that it is a clean city, to which I say, what city are you talking about? Sure, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone peeing on a sidewalk and there are very few cigarette butts floating around, but between the gross industry, the mine you can see from space, and the fact that no one reuses or recycles anything, oh, and all that gross-ness up and down I-15 --clean is not a word I'd ever use to describe Salt Lake, but neither is fashionable, so overall I agree.

Textual Pet Peeves brought to you by the ever-rational Annie and Molly.

Last night as Annie was regaling Becky and I with a first date story from the weekend,  she read us the text this guy sent to her exactly 72 hours later. In this word alert (!) was the word "ya." Annie expressed her disdain for grown men using the word "ya" in written form, and then she and Becky discussed how it was very important to them to send and receive texts that were properly spelled and punctuated. I told them that I didn't really care. And that is totally true. I don't care. It would be hypocritical of me to care. I have so many typograpical Eros* in my texts, I'm lucky if I send one that hasn't been auto-corrected away from my original thought entirely. Annie cares about proper spelling, grammar and punctuation in a way that I can't really relate to. She was surprised at my lackadaisical approach to texts, I think her exact phrase was, "you seem like the kind of person who would care about that."

Later on in the evening, as Annie and Mr. First Date continued their textual convo, he sent her another text, she read allowed the message and punctuation, when the phrase "double exclamation points" came out of Annie's mouth, I groaned. "Ugh, double exclamation points? That's the worst! Along with emoticons. Guys should never zealously punctuate." To which Annie replied, "Really?!? I like that." And Becky just laughed. Apparently I can relate.

We all agreed that we didn't like texting (word alerting?) as a mode of conversation, but also that a text was better than nothing.

*See what I did there?

Captured on ET

It is shameful, but 100% true that while I sync my phone a few times a week, and update music on him very often, I never, and I mean NEVER import photos from my phone.* If I want to do something with a photo on my phone immediately, I email it to a friend, to myself, whatever. So, I decided that I would import the photos from ET that I haven't yet--all 273 of them.

Here are a few of them from many, many moons ago:

Right before Thanksgiving** I took a couple of my mom's cousins to Tuesday Morning for them to get some holiday themed napkins and a novelty area rug. I found this awesome candlestick with painted shell attached. A perfect (although pointless and unattractive) accent for any room!

And then this section called "Great Gifts for Kids." You know what's not a great gift for a kid? A nutcracker.

Then this picture of a post-it. I often wake up in the middle and jot things down. Like when I was gearing up for a Mad Men trivia night, I was making a list one day of all of the women Don had slept with. I woke up in the middle of the night remembering the one I missed, and wrote "the whore who slapped Don," so I wrote it on the post-it pad next to my bed. Why did I write Time Life Bldg down in the middle of the night? I'm not sure, but I wanted to take a picture of it in case it comes up again.

*I never import photos from my real camera either. It's a problem. I'm working on it.
**It has been longer than that. I suck at life. What can I say?

Just call me Nelly Dean & Lockwood

So yesterday was the first time in a long while where I was actually able to have a conversation with my dear friend Shara. For the past few weeks we've been leaving each other voice mails, sending word alerts,* a few emails, even a few smoke signals. We talked for an hour and I asked about her boyfriend, and she said, "we broke up. I told you that." "You did? I don't remember that." "Yes, right before my birthday." "When have we talked since your birthday?" "I don't know, but I could have sworn I told you." The exchange went back and forth like this, and then she told me their break up story. 

Later last night, I was talking to our mutual friend Becky and I said, "did you know that Shara and Josh broke up?" And Bex said, "yes, you told me and then I talked to Shara." "I TOLD YOU?!?!" At this point, I was remembering the Voodoo Doughnuts trip that wasn't and wondering if I really did have that experience just like I totally spaced this life event of my friend breaking up with a guy she's been going out with for close to a year. How self-centered am I?**

Perhaps I have Multiple Personality Disorder? Except that both of my personalities are named Molly, and very, very similar. I doubt that's a thing. I'll check the DSM-IV and get back to you.

Whether or not I was in fact at Voodoo (I wasn't.) or whether Shara told me and then I told Becky (this probably happened.) I felt like I should tell you that I am a less reliable narrator than both Nelly Dean and Lockwood from that book that everyone else seems to love except for me, Wuthering Heights. Lest you had any faith in me, know that it is unfounded.

*While I don't really like Girls, or any of the characters on it, I am intrigued by it, at least up to episode 4. But I am totally stealing the phrase "word alert" for a text.***
**Don't answer that. 
***"Girls is awkward, uncomfortable and unapologetic in all the ways being in your early twenties can often be." - Max Greenfield in Goop, and I totally agree.

The Portland Experience episode 2

In a recent bout of purging of unnecessary items cluttering up my life, I posted some things on Craigslist. One of these things was my old longboard.

I got an email from a guy who wanted to drive up from Eugene to buy it. Cool. "Meet me at the Starbucks on Beaverton-Hillsdale- right off of 217." On my way there last night, I was on the phone with a friend when I noticed that there was a second Starbucks there that I had forgotten about. Together we decided that the one I was talking about was the more logical of the two to meet at, so I wasn't that concerned.

I had been there about 12 minutes, waiting in the chilly wind (which given the gorgeous weather we've been having for the last two weeks I was ill-prepared for) when I sent him another email.  After another 6 minutes I checked my email again. Three emails from him - getting progressively angrier in tone. I sent him another email, this time with my phone number. He called me and we figured out that we were each at the different Starbucks.



Considering this is my neck of the woods I probably should have known that there were two within a block. I'm going to take a my bad on this one.

While I was waiting for him though, I saw a suburban hipster on a bike leaving the Fred Meyer that was there with a huge backpack and probably about six grocery bags in tow. He was balanced and about to really get going, when a gust of wind met him and blew off his trucker hat. (Seriously, a trucker hat? What is this 2006?) He stopped his bike in the middle of the heavily populated parking lot intersection and flew backwards trying to capture his hat. The next like 45 seconds were sheer slapstick bliss. Once the hat was captured, a grocery bag would fall, then once that was taken care of, his backpack would slide around. It was a very precarious situation for this young man. And he was getting increasingly frustrated by the whole thing, fumbling, dropping, swearing, in a continuous cycle until finally homeboy was off. Maybe Fred Meyer should only be one-stop shopping when you have a trunk with you at the store.

Lessons learned: 1. Find out just how many Starbucks are within the block radius of where I'm planning on meeting someone before I suggest it as a meeting place. And 2. If you're going to ride your bike to the grocery store, maybe buy less than six grocery bags worth of stuff at a time, or bring reusable bags that can hold more and you can secure to your bike.

Remember that time...

So, remember when I would overuse the phrase, "Remember when..." and describe the situation I was in presently? Sometimes people get confused and say things, like, "no. I don't remember that." And I realize that my attempt at humor or sarcasm has been lost.

I received a card a couple of days ago from a bunch of people in my Relief Society. In it was a very specific message saying, "Remember that time with Ana Lee at Voodoo Doughnuts? Ha!"

I read this and had NO IDEA what she was talking about. Not even a glimmer of recognition. Now, this message came from a girl who actively dislikes me and makes no secret of it. I was trying to think of any time she and I were anywhere at the same time that was not our church building. I couldn't do it. My mind was a complete _______.  So now it was my turn to be confused by someone saying, "remember when..." oh Karma, what am I going to do with you?

I have often bemoaned the fact that my brain isn't quite as sharp as it was a few years ago. Ahhh the days when I could memorize all of the countries of Africa in 6th period and then miss only one on the test 7th period (I totally wrote down Uganda twice and forgot to fix the wrong one.) Or the days at BYU when everyone in my student development class hated me because I would always win our classwide memory games. I digress. The point is, I'm not as awesome with memory stuff as I used to be, but the fact that nothing about this was ringing a bell was disturbing me.

So, I immediately took a picture of said message and emailed it to Analee to ask her to remind me about this alleged trip. I have been to Voodoo fewer than 10 times in the 9 years its been open, and if I had gone with this girl, I would totally remember. Right? Right?

Analee calls me later on in the day to say, 'I can't believe you don't remember that trip to Voodoo. It was right after a YSA activity in Vancouver..." This was when I interrupted dear Analee. "Wait. I have never been to a YSA activity in Vancouver. I would never drive that far* to go to a church function."** "I think it was you. We were driving back and [insert super long, but kind of funny story about how this awkward girl who hates me said the doughnut she got was like an orgasm in her mouth here]." "Analee, I would totally have remembered ever being in a car with her. I would remember her saying, 'orgasm'. That was not me."

Analee thought about it for a minute, "oh, I think it was Melanie."

So Melanie, girl I met a couple of times a million years ago, know that there are a few people around these parts who are reminiscing about the fun times you all had together. But unfortunately, they are remembering me there instead of you. 

*Vancouver, WA is not too far to drive to for concerts, shopping, illegal in Oregon fireworks, etc. But a Young Single Adults activity...it might as well be on the moon. 
**Irony of ironies, my new calling I told you about, is Regional Young Single Adults activities co-chair. So now, I have to not only go to activities, I have to plan them, and drive to them, even if they are in Vancouver... should. have. said. no. haha. [sad face.]

A hipster by any other name.

A recent trip to the Apple store made me take note of several of the employees' name tags, and I had to wonder: Do hipisters, like hippies, name themselves--or, do these people simply become hipsters because of what their parents named them?

Case in point:
-Florin
-JoJo
-Braun
-Liam
-Augustine

What comes first, the chicken or the hipster flavored egg?

Have You Heard: Alexander

Because it is Spring, and one of these days it will behave as such.