Leap Year

When I was a child, I heard that girls could propose on Leap Day and it wouldn't be weird. So I decided that, naturally, if I was in my twenties and I wasn't married and it was Leap Year, I would just propose and be done with it.

Apparently, as a child, I did not understand the concept of rejection. I understand it now, and I did not dare propose to anyone today.

However. At work, there's a guy in my block of desks who sometimes likes to read random things from the internet aloud. And today, he read an article about how if a woman proposes to a man on Leap Day and he refuses, he has to give her money or buy her a new dress.

And I was like, "Hmm, that would almost be worth it."

And then he added that another acceptable payment on the man's part is a dozen pairs of gloves...so that the girl can use them to hide her shame of not having an engagement ring.

At first I was like, "What." And then I was like, "That would be pretty useless nowadays. People generally don't wear gloves." But then I remembered how many pairs of winter gloves I've lost since I moved out of my parents house (read: all of them) and suddenly twelve pairs of nice, warm gloves sounded divine.

Well, if I'm free next Leap Year, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and go for it.

Over the Garden Wall

I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

I saw Over the Garden Wall on a Sunday night. By the next Sunday night, I had purchased it on DVD.

I know, I know, it's crazy! It's like those people who suddenly become engaged after dating for only like five minutes. I'm never like that. I don't just buy DVDs willy-nilly. I don't really buy DVDs at all. I don't own my favorite movie (How to Train Your Dragon) or my second-favorite movie (Muppet Treasure Island). And don't even get me started on how long it takes me to to become invested in people. I usually know people for months, sometimes even years, before I decide I want to invest any time or emotions or stuff in them.

But I looked on Over the Garden Wall, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. It has a fascinating premise, and great characters, and even some fun musical numbers. So I bought it, and it is mine, and someday I shall show it to my children and force them to hope that they love it, too.

*plays the clarinet and recites poetry*

Now I'll tell you about this thing which I love so much. Over the Garden Wall is a miniseries by Cartoon Network. The premise is that two brothers, Wirt and Gregory, find themselves lost in the woods. In the first episode, they meet a depressed woodsman who warns them to beware the Beast. What does this mean? They don't know. And I can't tell you without giving everything away (yes, it's one of those shows). But it suffices me to say that shenanigans ensue, songs are sung, and black turtles are seen everywhere.

I mentioned that the characters are great. They are so great. I am particularly fond of Wirt, who is played by Elijah Wood. While Greg is an incurable optimist who would make a Shirley Temple character look like Oscar the Grouch, Wirt is a passive, insecure realist. If you're wondering what that combination looks like, I can only tell you that it involves playing the clarinet and reciting overwrought poetry and that it is hilarious.

Are you wondering why I'm telling you this? I'm telling you this because I believe you need to watch Over the Garden Wall. Yes, you. I have seriously spent the last several weeks trying to make everyone watch it. "Everyone" includes my roommates, people in my improv troupe, and an attractive coworker that I enjoy conversing with. It doesn't include Viola, but only because I'm in the process of forcing her to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. After she's done with that, I'll probably force her to watch this, too.

Over the Garden Wall can be found on Hulu, iTunes, and DVDs that can be purchased via the internet. It's only ten ten-minute episodes, so I recommend watching it in one sitting, like a movie.

Go forth! Go find it! And enjoy.

The Inversion and Other Weather

This weather is beyond my ken.

Weather in Utah is usually strange, but over the past few weeks it's been stranger than usual.

First, there was the inversion. The inversion is a dramatic drop in air quality that we periodically experience. It's like playing the Floor Is Lava except it's the Air Is Inversion, which is a much worse game because there's no safe place and everybody suffers.

I've heard a lot of people blame their illnesses on the inversion, and I was excited about this. I thought maybe it was kind of like when Mercury was in retrograde and people just blamed everything on that. Like, "No wonder I had to get braces twelve years ago! Mercury is totally in retrograde right now!" It's always good to have a scapegoat, and so I was looking forward to making the inversion the scapiest goat of all.

However, apparently we could only blame ears, nose, and throat problems on the inversion because there are actually some scientific reasonings behind that stuff. But it worked out, because I had a lot of ear, nose, and throat problems during the inversion. My throat burned. My nose ran. And my ears popped constantly, like I was deep-sea diving or riding in the Empire State Building elevator with a cold.

To be fair, I often have ear, nose, and throat problems. Such problems aren't really new, since I've always had pet allergies, asthma, and a penchant for sinus infections. I also had the croup when I was two or three years old. (I remember it surprisingly vividly. First my parents ran a hot shower in the bathroom and made me breathe the steam. Then they took me out on the porch near the driveway and let me breathe the fresh night air. I'd hardly ever been outside at that time of night before, and I found it very interesting and beautiful. That's probably when I realized I was a night person, not a day person.)

But I wasn't the only one who was sick. Everybody was sick during the inversion. Baby Brother coughed and coughed and threw up blood and coughed some more. My parents discussed whether to take him to the emergency room, which you normally don't debate when little boys are throwing up blood. But as my parents' insurance now charges them literally 2,300% more for emergency room visits than it did a few years ago, and as my mother the RN thought the blood might just be from a broken blood vessel, they watched Baby Brother carefully and waited a little while to see what happened. Nothing happened, except that Baby Brother coughed a lot more and went to sleep. But there was no more blood...and he was soon fine. Which, let me tell you, I was very glad of.

After several days, the horrible inversion cleared away, and the sun came out. And boy, when it arrived, it really arrived. We went from weather as depressing as any that Charles Dickens ever made an orphan endure on the streets of London and into what looked...and felt...just like spring.

This beautiful weather went on for a few days. Then, one day, a storm rolled in,

It literally rolled, like the waves off the coast of Kealia Beach. A guy at my work stood by the window, eating chips and watching the storm chase away the sunshine. Then there were horrible winds. Then hail. Then thick, thick snow. And then, within a few hours, it was sunny again, and it's more or less been that way ever since.

I do not get the weather in this state.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

I was in the shower when the power went out.

In times of panic, I tend to become a strange combination of logical and illogical. Logic won the day first. I asked myself, quite calmly, if there were any reason that I should get out of the shower when the power went out.

I answered back, just as calmly, that there was no reason why I shouldn't continue shampooing my hair. So I kept massaging my scalp, cool as you please.

I reached for the conditioner but only managed to knock over what sounded like a razor. It sounded like said razor had landed on the bathroom floor.

ME: What if I step on that razor when I get out of the shower?

ALSO ME: What if a killer creeps into this bathroom under cloak of darkness and muffler of running water?

ME: What if the Woman in Black?!?!

Shower time was definitely over. I turned off the water, carefully stepped out of the shower, and felt around for my towel.

Wrapped in the towel, I padded through the apartment, trying the light switches. The power was well and truly out. Occasionally our breaker gets flipped by our space heaters, so I thought someone should check out the fuse box. And, since I was the only one home, that someone would have to be me.

I made my way to the boiler room.

ME: What if my roommates came home right now and saw me wearing only a towel?

ALSO ME: Actually, they probably wouldn't be able to see you.

ME: Good point.

I went into the boiler room and, by the light of my cell phone, found the fuse box. Then, by the skill of tugging at things until something happened, I managed to open it. The Seamstress usually flips the breaker, so I had no idea what I was doing. I flipped some switches, but the lights stayed off.

I texted the Seamstress in hopes that she could tell me what to do. Then I went to the bathroom to get the clean pajamas I had set aside for after my shower. I changed in my room, where a little moonlight came through the window. For a minute I thought there was another, phosphorescent light source in the room, but then I realized it was just my body.

I figured I'd better double check that my roommates weren't home. Maybe they were asleep in their rooms? I stepped outside to see if their cars were there. They weren't.

When I came back inside, I noticed that I'd left the boiler room door open...and a blue light was flashing from within.

ME:...what is that?

ALSO ME: Do I want to know what that is?

ME: I don't want to know what that is.

Knowing that I had to face the terrible flashing light, I felt my way back to my room to get my phone. Because if a mysterious blue flashing light kills you for confronting it, you can at least get some photographic evidence of it first, and isn't that a comfort?

I crept as close to as I dared and inspected the source using the light of my phone. I discovered that the blue flashing light wasn't something awful like the Woman in Black. Nor did it have anything to do with the power outage. It was a light to tell me that the pilot light in the water heater was still burning, as if I hadn't just come out of a hot shower and was totally aware that there was nothing wrong with the water.

Relieved but frustrated, I headed to bed. But then I heard a key rattling in the lock.

In the darkness, I faced the door. "Hello?"

No answer.

ME: Hello?

The door opened.

THE SEAMSTRESS: Sorry I didn't answer your text; I was driving.

She began to fuss over the breaker and announced that it wasn't the source of the power outage. Then, wonderfully practical as she is, she lit candles and offered me one.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: No thanks; I'm going to bed.

Except what I apparently meant to say is, "I'm going to write a blog post about this!" Because that's what I did. And, as the power came back on shortly after, I didn't even need a candle.

The Dragon Dance

Usually, when my roommates and I go to dinner, we go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in Hometown.

I call it the the second-best because it is, and it is on account of there's another Chinese restaurant in town that's better. Their food is fantastic, but so are their prices. And so are their lines because they're only open a few hours a day. If I were feeling wealthy and exclusive I would go to the best Chinese restaurant in town, but I hardly ever feel wealthy and exclusive so I usually go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in town.

Best Friend Boy and his family goes there a lot and knows the manager fairly well. Etch-a-Sketch used to go with them a lot, so she also knows the manager fairly well. And now I go there so much that the manager knows me as well. Or he's confusing me with Etch-a-Sketch, since we've gone there a few times together and people commonly mistake us for each other due to similar hair and body structure.

Whether he thinks I'm me or whether he thinks I'm Etch-a-Sketch, the manager usually comes to personally talk to me whenever I'm in the house. A few weeks ago, when Pepper and I came for dinner, he encouraged me to come to the restaurant for their Chinese New Year's celebration.

Since I'm a sucker for Chinese food and celebrations and interesting things that I've never done before, I agreed, and on the night of the celebration I showed up for a 6:30 reservation with Pepper, the Seamstress, and Goldfinger in tow.

The restaurant was pretty crowded with couples and families. Little red envelopes hung from the ceiling. There was one near our table that was hanging alongside a bunch of lettuce.

We ordered from the special New Year's menu and settled in to wait.

Pepper was excited because her grandmother is Chinese and used to take her to a Chinese restaurant for a similar New Year's celebration. She was so excited that she brought us all gifts for the occasion: notebooks!

PEPPER: Read the words on the front, because they mean something.

The Seamstress's notebook said, "Reach for the stars." Goldfinger's notebook said, "Make mistakes." This is what mine said:

Obviously, Pepper knows me well.

Shortly after our food came, a drumming started within the restaurant. It was a compelling, steady drumbeat, and everybody started moving in time to it. I kept bobbing my head back and forth because I just couldn't help myself. Goldfinger was bobbing his head, too. The waiters were stepping in time.

Then the dragon came out! We all craned our heads eagerly to look... buuut this lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us so that she could take a video. So we were left in suspense while she videoed. But then finally, finally, she moved, and we could actually see the dragon.

It was the real deal, too. The dancers in the dragon costume pranced up and down and all around the restaurant to the beat of the drum. They were accompanied by a dancer wearing a mask and carrying a fan, and another dancer in a monkey mask and costume. It was just like in Fraggle Rock when they dress up as the Weeba beast and dance and shout "Weeba weeba!" Except nobody shouted "Weeba weeba!" Not even me, even though I really wanted to.

The kids in the restaurant couldn't get enough of that monkey. I couldn't get enough of that monkey. He hopped around, crouching on the ground and poking his head through the cutouts in the partition walls. He monkeyed his way through the aisles, which we enjoyed watching... buuut then the lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us again so that she could take a video. Again.

After about twenty minutes of this, the dragon began a different kind of dance. It lifted its head up to one of the red envelopes hanging from the ceiling, close its giant dragon mouth around it, and gulp it into its gut. Envelope after envelope it swallowed, even the one hanging next to the lettuce. In fact, in its haste to eat the envelope, it also swallowed the lettuce. And then it danced around the restaurant and threw the lettuce up onto the ground. Because apparently, dragons like red envelopes but not lettuce.

All the while, the drums kept beating. They made me feel like I had to get up and do something, but there was no room in the restaurant to do anything. The only thing to do was to keep eating, even though I was stuffed with food from the very filling special New Year's menu.

Soon the whole thing was done. We applauded, paid, boxed up our food, had an obligatory conversation with my BFF the manager, and left. I couldn't help feeling kind of hopeful because a) the excitement of the drumbeat had gotten into my soul. Also b) Pepper had said that we should use our notebooks to make New Year's resolutions because, as far as she was concerned, it was like New Year's all over again. And since this was a lot more exciting than what I usually do for New Year', I liked the idea of starting 2016 over with this other beginning.

Then we got home, and the Seamstress looked up our zodiac signs.

THE SEAMSTRESS: (to Awkward Mormon Girl) Apparently the year of the monkey is supposed to be really bad luck for you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: ...NO.

On Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was named after St. Valentine, but nobody seems to care about that guy these days. So that leaves me in a grammatical crisis: do I call it "Valentine's Day" as in the day that belongs to Valentine? Or "Valentines Day" as in the day of the giving of the valentines? It's a puzzlement, I tell you.

I actually really like Valentine's Day. Obviously we should let people know that we love them more than once a year, but I do like the idea of a day honed particularly for that expression.

People tend to associate the day with romantic love only. They moan, "I'm single again on Valentine's Day?" Well, my friend, if you're one of those people, allow me to point out that at some point in life a great many people get married, and then from that point on they have someone to spend Valentine's Day with forever and ever. So actually, your number of Valentine's Days as a single person are probably limited. I would suggest making good use of these special-edition days. Since you don't have a romantic interest to focus on, maybe you should look out for other people who would appreciate gestures of platonic or familial love from you. Make as many people in your sphere of influence feel loved and appreciated on Valentine's Day as you possibly can within reasonable limits of expense, time, and effort.

Example: on what turned out to be her last Valentine's Day as a single person, La Petite brought me a card, a treat, and a stuffed frog. I was really excited that somebody had thought of me and tried to make my day special. Next year, you could be somebody's La Petite.

One last thought for you today: I'm not married. I've never been married. But I do know a lot of married people and so I've been speculating about what it might be like when I get there. Here's a thing I wrote in my journal that perhaps some other human in the world might find to be a useful perspective:

The truth is, is when marriage takes place you take all your flaws and insecurities and mistakes and sins and place them on the altar. Your spouse does the same. And you say to Heavenly Father, "Make us better than we are. We give away all these things to you. We sacrifice them all on this altar, so that we might be charitable and humble enough to become one and work together as one."

Anyways, happy day that belongs to St. Valentine and/or the day of the giving of the valentines. Whichever interpretation you prefer.

Risks and But Ifs

A while ago, I got some advice from someone who is exceptionally qualified to give advice. I went to this person and told them that I was trying really hard in life. I was trying really hard to do what Heavenly Father wanted me to do, and I felt like I was doing what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. However, nothing was turning out well or, in some situations, turning out at all.

After spilling my guts about the five thousand things that were bothering me, this person said, "Stop saying 'but if.'"

And "'But if' is not God's way."

I was thinking about that just now because lately I've obsessing a lot about my social interactions or rather my lack thereof.

It's hard for me to connect with people. It's hard for me to make eye contact with them. It's hard for me to even go up and talk to someone I don't really know because I dislike small talk and I don't get a lot of emotional value out of speaking to strangers anyways. I tend to interrupt people when I'm excited. I tend to get intense.

All of these things form a pretty substantial barrier between me and the seven and a half billion other people in the world.

Every time I talk to someone who I don't know very well, it's a scary experience. Lately I've found myself walking towards conversations thinking, "I think this person likes talking to me, but if they don't, how would I know?"

The conclusion I've come to is that I can't know. So I guess my choices are either be safe and not talk to people, or talk to people and feel like I'm taking an enormous risk every time I do it.

Taking risks is hard enough without constantly questioning yourself and saying, "but if." Or saying "What if?" "What if?" will drive you to distraction. "What if?" will kill you. Just do the thing and find out what happens. In the long run, I usually don't regret taking risks, but I do regret letting opportunities pass me by because of my own inaction.

It's All In the Cards

Hi everybody!

Y'all know my obsession with February 3rd. Well, once again, not a lot happened on this year's February 3rd, but I'm hopeful for next year.

Tonight I was looking for a comedic monologue I wrote in high school. Baby Sister wants to use it for an audition, but due to a mishap with the family computer there are no digital copies of it in existence. I have only one print copy, but I'm not sure where it is. So I pulled out my boxes of special things and started looking.

I started keeping a box of special things when I was, oh, maybe four years old. Since my love language is gifts, stuff is important to me, and some stuff I've kept practically my whole life. Inside are pictures from the program when I saw Toy Story on Ice eighteen or nineteen years ago, some notes Viola and I wrote during Anne of Green Gables, letters that Best Friend Boy sent me on his mission, a picture that Shutterbug once drew for me during class, my high school and college graduation announcements, minutes from Relief Society presidency meetings, and these Phineas and Ferb cards, among other things.

Yes, the one on the right does say "nephew" on it. Little Sister gave it to me for my birthday last year. Inside, it begins, "Thanks for being the best nephew I could have ever asked for!!!! You have exceeded my expectations of you." 

Digging a little deeper, I found more store bought cards from various loved ones, but I also found a ton of homemade cards. I found at least one homemade birthday card from each of my younger siblings. There was a hand-drawn Phineas and Ferb card from Baby Brother. A card from Little Sister with a drawing of a birthday cake on it that was probably from when we were both in elementary school. A card from Baby Sister cut in the shape of a dragon egg, from the year that the two of us were into this site where we could hatch virtual dragons. A card made by the notoriously grumpy Little Brother that says, "You are my sunshine!"

And these cards reminded me of something that I sometimes forget. Which is to say, life is hard and it's not fun fifty-two percent of the time. But regardless of those facts, I'm pretty lucky.