How Do I Love Thee?

Since this post, a lot has happened.

Baby Sister is gone! She's in the MTC. The night before she left, I stayed over at my parents' house. So did Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister. Baby Sister said that she wanted all of us in the house with her so that if she woke up in the middle of the night, she could come round and look at us.

I don't know if she actually did that, but she did "tuck us in" the night before. She stopped by everyone before we went to sleep. I'm not sure what she said to everyone else, but she told me to tell you that she said words so wise and deep that they cannot be repeated.

When we dropped her off, we took our new minivan. (Our Mormon Assault Vehicle aka Moby Dick aka the 14-passenger van perished in the fall. I won't embarrass family members by saying how the van perished, but I will say that my fear of sneezing while driving has been completely justified. Why did we even have a 14-person van when there are only eight of us, you might wonder? Because minivans generally stop at seven seats, and if you have too many people for a minivan you have to buy a humongous monster van instead. Both Shutterbug and Best Friend Boy's families, of eight and nine people respectively, also had 14-person vans.) Unlike our Mormon Assault Vehicle, the minivan had a back window that I could actually see out of. I took advantage of this innovation by watching Baby Sister as long as I could as we drove away.

I miss her, but not as much as one might think. First, she's off doing something we both believe in, and that's good, so how can I be sad about it? Secondly, almost immediately after she left, I ran off to go camping with my ward. I haven't even had much time to miss her.

While on this camping trip, I thought a lot about love. I thought about all the different ways a body can love someone and the meaning of those ways. For example, on this camping trip we were accompanied by the counselor's wife whom I referenced in this post about the ward book club. (Update: she's now the bishop's wife! Because the counselor became the bishop...not because she changed husbands...I just wanted to clarify that.) That book club meeting was pretty frustrating for me. I went running afterward, and then following my run, I went back to her house, late at night and unannounced, and told her why I was frustrated. And she just rolled with it. She was so nice to me even though I'd just broken all 75,847 rules of normal social engagement. And then we became friends, which seems unbelievable, just because I feel like a real actual adult mother who isn't my real actual adult mother should be put off by my quirks and personality, not embrace them!

She was so kind to me this entire campout even though I was in a terrible mood, and I was reminded of the power of friendship love. Which is a very important love! Yet it's very different from the love I feel for Baby Sister and my other younger siblings, which in turn is different from the love I feel for Older Sister, which is again different from the love I feel for my parents. All those loves are different from the kind of affection I feel for my roommates. Those loves are different from the people I often see whom I have a vague sort of fondness for but don't know well enough to love. And all of those are again different from the loves I've felt for the boys I've cared for as friends and beyond. And all of that is again different from the love I feel for God and Christ.

All of these thoughts were so much more eloquent and deep inside my head, but now I'm essentially just vomiting all my thoughts and have lost track of the purpose. I don't know what I mean by this. I don't know. It all made so much more sense when I was camping in the mountains and staring at the stars.

If You're Interested in Stitch Fix...

I am extremely surprised by how popular my Stitch Fix blog posts are.

Apart from Blogger's stats indicating that those posts draw far more views than most, I have several times been approached by friends and acquaintances in real life. They tell me excitedly that they're going to sign up for Stitch Fix, or they tell me wistfully that want to try Stitch Fix but can't afford it, and so they get their Fixes vicariously through me.

If you're one of my readers who think Stitch Fix is neat, then you might like some other things I'm trying out:

1. theSkimm
Apparently, I am reliant on Shutterbug's impeccable taste. Shutterbug recommended Stitch Fix to me, and this week she introduced me to theSkimm through a Facebook post.

theSkimm is a free service that sends you an email every weekday. The email contains a synopsis of the current events headlining the news that morning. For someone like me, who dislikes reading about the strife in the world but who feels wholly uninformed if she doesn't, it's a great way to get a handle on the news without having to dig through or wallow in it. You also probably remember that I prefer neutral journalism when possible. So far, it seems to me that theSkimm's political slant isn't terribly overt. They don't make many definitive statements; instead, they seem to be fond of asking questions like, "Do potatoes cause cancer?" Then, instead of actually answering the question, they drop a piece of evidence that could be taken with either regard or disregard. Such as: "One thing's for sure—scientists are pushing for potatoes to undergo more thorough radiation testing!"

In some circumstances, not giving a straight answer is cowardly. In this case, though, it is kind of refreshing. I realize theSkimm is trying to keep a broad appeal for subscription purposes, but just the same I appreciate not being blatantly told how to think...for once.

Also, each email takes me only about five minutes to read. However, there are some sponsored ad blurbs towards the end of the email, which are annoying.

If you're interested in giving theSkimm a try, the link I provided earlier is my referral link. Yes, I get something from referring theSkimm. What? I honestly don't know. That might be the only thing I find objectionable so far: theSkimm provided me with a referral link but is very unclear about what I get when others sign up. In other words I'm promoting theSkimm not only because I like the service but because I'm also curious about what will happen if I do get referrals.

2. Favorite Eats
This is a service where you pay a small subscription fee each month in return for restaurant gift cards. Essentially, after you subtract the subscription fee from the gift card amount, you're actually getting several dollars' worth of free food. You then use the restaurant gift card and leave a restaurant review on social media.

When I first saw the service description, I thought it was a probably a scam. Then I realized what's probably actually happening: a bunch of restaurants hired Favorite Eats to promote them. Favorite Eats is taking a chunk of that money to essentially hire everyday food enthusiasts to do that promoting for them. Those enthusiasts will be able to reach people who know and trust them and will be able to hit audiences normal campaigns wouldn't.

Pretty smart! I for one would like to be a part of what seems to be a fun experiment. Here's the big catch—the referral link up above is actually for a waitlist. The actual service hasn't launched yet, and apparently it will only accept a certain number of applicants. I'm sharing the waitlist because when people sign up from my referral link, it bumps me higher in the waitlist and makes it more likely I'll actually get a spot to try the service. Remember, since it's just a waitlist, you don't have to be 100% sure you actually want to try the service before signing up. You may not get high enough on the waitlist to get a chance to try it anyway.

Wanted: Polka Dot Jeans

Yes, I know I wrote about striped shorts yesterday, and now I'm writing about polka dot jeans. Apparently, all I want to write about this week is pants.

Those of you who have read my Stitch Fix posts are familiar with my desire to own polka dot jeans. In fact, apparently everyone I know constantly thinks about this. Over the weekend, I was at a baby shower for my friend Jumpin'. Shutterbug was there with Baby Shutterbug (soon to be known as Baby Shutterbug #1, since Shutterbug is expecting another bug this summer). Baby Shutterbug #1 and I got along pretty well at this shower, except for when I tried to get her to take a picture with me. Then I suddenly became horrible and terrifying and someone to escape from.

Anyways, Shutterbug had brought for Jumpin's daughter, among other things, a pair of baby-sized polka dot jeans.

SHUTTERBUG: (to me) I thought of you when I bought those!

And then, today, while I was at a movie, Snacktime texted me.

I have been wanting to mention Snacktime at various points over the past three years, but it just never happened. Snacktime is a delightful person. She was roommates with La Petite and the Seamstress before I was, and when she became engaged she and La Petite persuaded me to take her place in the apartment.

Besides being a person who found me a place to live, Snacktime apparently has an ambition to become a person who also finds me polka dot jeans. In her text, she told me that she had found "two pair of some very cute" polka dot jeans at Hometown's Deseret Industries.

So I went to Deseret Industries. I found the polka dot jeans. One pair was much too big. The other was just the tiniest bit too small. I wriggled in these too-small jeans, trying to make them fit. I told myself that I could live with the slight squeeze in my calves. But, when they slid halfway off when I tried to sit down, I had to concede that they weren't going to work.

So, in spite of my friends' and Jessica V's efforts, I still don't have any polka dot jeans. But if everyone keeps up the hard work, surely one day all of my polka dot-jean-related dreams will come true.

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.

The Christmas Dance

A few weeks ago, Baby Sister went to the annual Hometown High Christmas dance. Which she apparently has time to do when she's not being a lead in a musical, doing face painting, or getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Utah High School Musical Theatre Guild of People Who Nominate Other People. Or whatever they're called.

Basically, you will never be as cool as Baby Sister so you should just stop trying. The end.

For the dance, Baby Sister donned a teal velveteen top with a brocade skirt, a combination of her own devising. I took her to buy gold jewelry at Target and she did her own hair and makeup because, again, she's cool enough and skillful enough to do that. She looked like a million and one bucks.

All of this dance prepping reminded me of when I was Baby Sister's age and went to the Hometown High Christmas dance.

The Christmas dance is the only dressy uppy girls' choice dance at Hometown High, so you better believe I was careful about who I asked. I decided to ask the Good Guy, for reasons that you probably understand from the moniker that he is herein given.

On the day of the day of the dance I, like Baby Sister, wore teal. I'd borrowed this pretty dress from Bessie, who'd worn it to Homecoming the year before. The dress's best feature was arguably a strip of black lace around the waist. I wore it with silver jewelry and my official school dance shoes, which were black and satiny heels with little bows on the front. I was pretty excited to wear this ensemble. I was also very conscious of the fact that it was a borrowed dress, and I was determined not to get it dirty.

Now, the weather had been pretty bad that day. Not as bad as the weather earlier this week, but bad enough that Shutterbug's parents insisted on picking us up after dinner and driving us to the dance themselves.

There was snow and ice everywhere when Shutterbug, Etch-a-Sketch and I went to pick up our dates. The Good Guy lived on a fairly steep hill, so we went carefully, carefully up to get him.

Shutterbug pulled into the driveway cautiously. I stepped out of the car cautiously and took a cautious step.

Cautious, but tractionless. My official school dance shoes went one way, my torso went another, and suddenly I was sprawled on the Good Guy's driveway.

I heard the car door open. "Are you okay?" Shutterbug said.

I was okay. And the boutonnière I'd brought for the Good Guy was also okay. But the front and side of the borrowed teal dress were all wet.

And so, in my awkwardly wet dress, I trekked up the driveway so I could go inside and awkwardly complete one of the most awkward rituals of all time aka pinning a boutonnière to a boy's lapel while his parents are watching. And taking pictures.

Recently, the Good Guy found a picture of us at the dance on Facebook and shared it. You know, to be all, "Ha ha, do you remember that, Awkward Mormon Girl?" That kind of thing.

And I was all, "Ha ha DO I EVER."

Five Weddings

I. The First
Although Etch-a-Sketch is not the friend I have been closes with the longest, she is the friend I met first. We went to preschool together and reunited in high school. She is also the first of my friends to get married.

I was terribly excited for Etch-Sketch's wedding. We went wedding dress shopping. I gave suggestions for decorations and helped glue the centerpieces together. The day of the wedding, I spent the morning at the reception venue, helping to get things ready. Then it was off to the temple to see Etch-a-Sketch and her new husband emerge, beaming. I beamed back at them. Then it was another mad dash--this time to prepare and serve the luncheon. I friend corn chips to put on the Cafe Rio-style salads like I had been born into the world for that purpose. After the luncheon, a short break. Then we set up for the reception. I made and served miniature cheesecakes and ran to the store for more chocolate syrup. I didn't leave until after Etch-a-Sketch and Mr. Etch-a-Sketch had driven off to start their life together as husband and wife.

II. How Are You?
I met Shutterbug in high school band class, and I thought I knew her from somewhere. Her name and her face and her amazing red hair all seemed familiar to me.

We would talk occasionally. Then we became band trip roommates, and soon were friends.

When I saw Shutterbug at lunch and between classes, she would often say, "How are you?"

One day, I retorted by pointing out that we not only saw each other almost every day, we often saw each other multiple times a day, and "How are you?" is something people should only say to each other when they don't see each other often and sincerely don't know how the other is doing, and so therefore could we please greet each other in some other manner?

From then on, we made a point of never saying, "How are you?" to each other. If one of us slipped, they received a severe chastisement.

Then one year, Shutterbug went on a date on my birthday. Things became Facebook official while I was in Italy, and they married the day before Thanksgiving. Shutterbug and her husband made their home in a city not too far from Hometown, but not too close either.

Now, when Shutterbug and I see each other, we say, "How are you?"

III. Saying Yes
One day, the bishop called me into his office and told me that we were getting a new Relief Society president, and that she felt prompted to ask me to be her first counselor. Would I accept this calling?

"Yes," I said. Yes to the calling, yes to serving Heavenly Father, and yes to loving and helping and being the right-hand woman of this new president, whomever she was.

I went to the temple that week. A girl that I'd known in junior high and who had recently joined our ward was there.

She came and sat by me. I let her. I'd always thought she was nice and, besides, I knew that being in the Relief Society presidency would require being extra friendly and conscientious of the women in my ward.

We did baptisms for the dead. Afterward, the girl from junior high school cornered me and began to spill out her soul.

"I've just been having such a hard time," she said breathlessly, then launched into a long explanation.

I listened politely, but I was a little taken aback. I didn't remember her being so...randomly-share-personal-stuff with-almost-strangers-ish.

"-and then this calling-" she continued.

"Oh." Comprehension had dawned. "You must be the new Relief Society president!"

We returned to that temple often, Madam President and I. And we visited and served and talked and laughed and loved together. We visited and talked and laughed and loved a year away. And at the end of that year, I went to that temple once again to witness Madam President be married and sealed for time and eternity, for she had said yes to a calling even more demanding and rewarding than Relief Society president.

IV. Meant to Be
It appears that Heavenly Father very much wanted La Petite and I to be friends, on account of He gave us so many opportunities to do it.

First, we attended the same junior high, although we never did meet.

Then we ended up in the same ward, although we never did talk.

Then I applied to work at the fast food restaurant where, unbeknownst to me, La Petite was employed. We talked occasionally, and after a year starting becoming truly friendly and then friends.

Then we both served with Madam President. La Petite was the Relief Society secretary, the person who kept us organized. The three of us served endless hours together, as a presidency, as sisters in Zion, as friends.

When La Petite begged told me that she would force me if I didn't asked me to move in with her and the Seamstress, I accepted, because after spending so much time with her in so many different capacities, I knew we were definitely compatible as roommates.

I moved in. Three weeks later, she was engaged. She wanted to stay with us and get married, but as those things aren't compatible, she married and moved out.

At the reception, someone said to me, "Oh, so you're her roommate?"

This was strange to me, that when La Petite and I were students together, in the same ward, coworkers, friends, and also in the Relief Society presidency together, I should be addressed by the title of "roommate," when that title had been acquired but lately and been fleeting indeed.

V. The Last
My BFF Viola and I met at a pivotal time of life. We quickly became best friends, meaning, of course, that I would clearly someday attend her wedding.

After many years of friendship, the day that was once only hypothetical became a reality. Viola's wedding day came upon us.

Nobody formally "gave" Viola "away" at the wedding. But informally, a wedding is always a giving away. Especially for dear friends who give the care and keeping of somebody they love away to someone that they hope loves her as much as or more than they do. They give her away to a new life, knowing their place will be different in it. That's as it should be; that's as marriage should be. But even when it should be, different is still different.

I cried at the ceremony. I smiled at the reception. I just didn't know what to do with myself. So I took up a pen and gave myself over to that ambitious human pastime: trying to explain exactly what you are feeling.

Blessed

Life is hard right now.

Life is usually hard, but right now it's more forcefully hard than usual.

But I can tell you that every time something hard has happened to me, I have received blessings greater than my hardships.

My junior year of high school, I sank into a deep clinical depression. I felt very sad, and very lonely. The quality of everything I did took a nose dive. And when I say everything, I mean my schoolwork, too.

I would not be able to go to college without a scholarship; my parents couldn't afford to help me. Every day, every night, whenever I had a moment where I could feel something other than apathy of depression, I was anxious about my future. I wanted to go to college. Would I be able to go?

But blessings were given to me. More than blessings--miracles. Provisions had been and continued to be made for me in a most wondrous way.

A few months before I became depressed, I took the PSAT, or NMSQT, test. I scored in the 98th percentile, which qualified me as a contender to be a National Merit Scholar. And although my individual grades were slipping, my overall GPA remained healthy enough and my portfolio of activities was impressive enough that in spite of the Cs, I was chosen a year later. And because schools with National Merit Scholars receive extra funding, suddenly all these colleges basically offered me a degree for free. At Nameless Utah College, I paid for my books and fees, but I didn't pay a red cent of the actual tuition. My education was assured without me having to do much of anything.

That was one amazing blessing. Another one was that one day, for no reason in particular, I felt promoted to seek out Best Friend Boy. But at the time, he was only Friend Boy. We weren't super close. I liked him, and Etch-a-Sketch, and Shutterbug a lot, but I was sort of a free agent at school. I didn't really have a "group." I felt like I had enough close friends outside of school and I didn't need any more.

However, I decided to confide in Best Friend Boy some of the difficulties of my depression. I can only attribute this weird decision to divine intervention, and I have been grateful for said divine intervention every day since. There is no doubt in my mind that the love of Best Friend Boy, Etch-a-Sketch, and Shutterbug changed my life. Without that depression, though, I never would have been humble enough to accept that love and friendship.

Life was difficult, but what I needed was provided to me...even when I didn't know that I needed it.

A year and a half ago, some other issues of great personal import which I cannot share here arose. And on top of that, I was in my last semester of college, and the pressure was mounting to do all the necessary things that must be done in the last year of college, like find a real job that was in my field which I could support myself with. And on top of that, the interim job that I had decided to take was in a city an hour away. And on top of that, I was in the Relief Society presidency, devoting much of my free time to serving Heavenly Father. We would go visit women in our ward at least one day a week, among other duties. And I couldn't just show up for these visits; to be effective, I had to really be present. And on top of that, I became very sick for seven weeks. I was always sick to my stomach and had no appetite, and what I did eat did not stay put. I went to doctors and specialists, but they had no idea what was wrong. And on top of that, I became an insomniac, lying awake at night and wondering how I could possibly get through all of this.

The obvious blessing here is that I did get through it. I scarcely remember doing homework, but somehow it got done. And things got better. I received a blessing of healing from my father, and my illness went away. I graduated successfully and found a job in my field, which I wasn't expecting. Creative writers don't get creative writing jobs. They either get rich writing novels or are forced to work in another field or starve to death while trying to live on freelance work and particularly vivid descriptions of food. My insomnia ceased. And best of all, after everything cleared up, I was able to go to the temple to be endowed. This has been the greatest blessing of all.

I said in a previous post that I hadn't yet received many blessings out of my current trials. But what I guess I really meant was that I haven't received the type of blessings that would mean my current trials are coming to an end. Because I have been so blessed. I have a family that I love so much. I have the knowledge of the true gospel in the end of days. I have good friends, supportive roommates, a good job that gives me what I need and more, a healthy body, wonderful church callings, yellow shoes, all three seasons of Avatar the Last Airbender, and so much more. At the moment, I don't have everything that I hope for, but I have so much to thank God for every day. I know that He loves me, and I know that in time, the deepest desires of my heart will surely come my way.

Fixin' for a Stitchin'

I have decided to try Stitch Fix.

A description of Stitch Fix, as written by Stitch Fix: “Get your own personal stylist. Hand-selected women's fashion shipped free, straight to your door. Try on at home risk-free.”

A description of Stitch Fix, as written by me: “I tell Stitch Fix what size I am and what kind of clothes I like. Stitch Fix sends me clothes. I try on the clothes. I send back the clothes I don’t like. I don’t have to spend the entire day shopping and I get to try on clothes with clothes I already have and I get to be surprised. Fist-bumps all around.”

How did I reach the decision to try this personal stylist service? Well, Shutterbug started Stitch Fix recently. When she mentioned it on Facebook, I was intrigued. When I started investigating other people’s Stitch Fix experience, I was half-convinced. And when Shutterbug showed me pictures of the clothes she got, I was like, “Yup. This is legit. I’m gonna try it.”

So next week, my friends, I will receive a box of five items from Stitch Fix. I will try on all the items, and then I will tell you all about it. Possibly there will be pictures. And you can all have the fun of trying Stitch Fix vicariously through me.

”Gee, Awkward Mormon Girl,” you may be saying, “this is the second time you’ve written about clothes in the past two months. Is this blog going to become a fashion blog?”

Pffft. Heavens, no. This blog is about my experience as an awkward Mormon girl. What I wear is part of that experience, especially now that I’m endowed and have special garments that I wear under my clothes. I definitely dress differently from a lot of the other women my age, and I think I would be amiss not to occasionally talk about the challenges and blessings that accompany my clothes-shopping efforts.

However, there is only so much to be said about clothes. As of now, I’m planning to try Stitch Fix three times and write three correlating blog posts. After that, although I may continue with Stitch Fix, I have no plans to keep writing about it. Unless you people beg me to, or unless something unusual or exciting happens in relation to Stitch Fix.

Should you be interested in trying Stitch Fix yourself, you can sign up using my personal referral link. I get $25 in credit for every person who uses my link to try it out. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

The Novelist

The summer after Best Friend Boy left on his mission, I was lonely. I was uncertain of the future. I missed Best Friend Boy, and I knew I would not see him again for two years. I was somewhat distressed, and so I decided to write a novel.

I spent most of the summer isolated, locked in my room with my laptop. And while Viola and Etch-a-Sketch and Shutterbug and all the rest dealt with their own lives, I dealt with the lives of fictional characters. I spun my own problems into a tale whose plot doesn't represent my life at the time yet somehow encapsulates what I was thinking and feeling perfectly.

You probably wonder where I'm getting at with this. What I mean to say is that right now, I'm lonely. I'm uncertain of the future, and I'm somewhat distressed.

Maybe it's time to write another novel.

I Don't Even Know

I'm back from New York City! I plan to tell you all about it. But tonight, I'm going to share a weird dream I had last night.

In this dream, I was at a wedding reception for a family member of Runner Bean's best friend/Best Friend Boy's third cousin. This wedding reception then turned into some Broadwayesque show that bore some similarity to The Lion King. At least, there were some very tall giraffes, one of whom was played by Mr. Shutterbug on extremely high stilts. These stilts were so extremely high that Mr. Shutterbug could place them on the auditorium floor yet still be able to reach the balcony. Strapped to his chest was his and Shutterbug's infant child, who used chopsticks to give us all miniature chocolate chip cookies.

As Mr. Shutterbug stilted away, I turned to Older Sister and said, "I would not be comfortable carrying a baby on those stilts!"

But apparently I was comfortable endangering the lives of older children, because the next thing I knew, I was driving recklessly through the streets of Hometown with Little Sister, Baby Sister, Little Brother, and Monkey Cousin in tow.

I wasn't driving recklessly on purpose, however. I was having a very hard time seeing where I was going and what was around me because I was a backseat driver. Literally, I was driving from the back seat. Even though there was no steering wheel there and no brakes.

It was probably due to the no-brakes thing that we crashed into some cement thing. Not that the dream showed the part where we crashed from the cement thing--I just knew that we had, the same way I knew that the reception was for Runner Bean's best friend/Best Friend Boy's third cousin's family even though I never saw Runner Bean's best friend/Best Friend Boy's third cousin, or Runner Bean, or Best Friend Boy at the reception.

The next scene in the dream was me waking up from a coma in a nursing home where they were caring for me. My nurse had been so kind as to write down on my medical chart the legal charges I was going to face--six counts of attempted murder, even though there were only five people in the car including myself.

A nurse came and started asking me questions, and I knew she was mentally evaluating me. Then my family was allowed to visit me, but the only person who seemed happy about this was Baby Brother.

Then I woke up.

If you're Sigmund Freud and/or some kind of dream astrologist person, you can probably have a field day with interpreting this dream. All it's done for me is make me really paranoid about my driving skills.

Surprise! Or Not.

I decided that for my thirteenth birthday, I would like to have a surprise party.

I like surprises, but the problem with them is that you can't give yourself surprises. They depend solely on other people.

Well, theoretically, anyway.

In the months leading up to my birthday, I would occasionally comment on how much I liked surprise parties and, gee, wouldn't it be great to have one? I thought I was being fairly transparent about this, but I guess my mom was only catching on in some ways. Little Sister told me she and Mom had this conversation:

LITTLE SISTER: You do know Awkward Mormon Girl knows about the surprise party, right?

MOM: No, she doesn't.

LITTLE SISTER: There's a note on her rehearsal calendar from her friend Viola, asking if she can hang out on Saturday. Awkward Mormon Girl literally wrote, I can't. My parents are throwing me a surprise party in response.

MOM: If you say so, Little Sister.

LITTLE SISTER: The calendar is hanging on the kitchen bulletin board if you want to see for yourself.

MOM: I can't. I'm too busy planning this surprise party for your sister.

When my sixteenth birthday approached, I dropped hints to Viola and Little Sister that, hey, sixteen is pretty special, and wouldn't it be nice to have a surprise party to commemorate the occasion?

There was many a discussion after this manner:

VIOLA: If you had a surprise party, what would you want to eat?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Pizza is cheap and easy.

VIOLA: If you had a surprise party, would you want people to be invited by phone or through invitations in the mail?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Invitations, of course. The phone is the devil's way.

VIOLA: If you had a surprise party, who would you want to come?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You, Little Sister, Baby Sister, the Chess Master, the Fearless One, Etch-a-Sketch, Shutterbug, Best Friend Boy, and, let's see...Porch.

Porch and I had known each other for years, but he is an elusive sort of human, and he didn't spend much time with anyone, myself included. Still, if I was going to have a surprise party, I wanted him there.

I decided that the most anxious-making thing about birthday parties is not knowing what sort of present to get the birthday person. It seemed that if Porch knew exactly what to get me for my birthday, the likelihood of him coming to the party would be increased. So, during our World Civ class, I laid the foundation of an ingenious plan.

A FEW WEEKS BEFORE THE PARTY
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Wow, Porch, is that pencil you're using to do your schoolwork sparkly? That's pretty cool.

A WEEK OR SO LATER
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I wish I had a sparkly pencil like yours.

THE WEEK I ESTIMATED THE INVITATIONS WENT OUT
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: For my birthday, I'm going to ask for sparkly pencils of my very own.

Finally, the long-awaited party arrived. I went to Viola's on some fool's errand, and when I arrived...

"SURPRISE!!!" Everyone jumped out from hiding places.

Viola, Little Sister, Baby Sister, the Chess Master, the Fearless One, Etch-a-Sketch, Shutterbug, Best Friend Boy, Porch, and a quantity of pizza were all there!

Oh good I thought. This all went exactly as planned.

PORCH: Surprise! I got you these sparkly pencils for your birthday.

Ready or Not

It's been a busy summer.

Right now I am undergoing some major life changes (which I will expound upon further in future posts), which means that I spend approximately 24.78 hours a day coordinating said life changes and praying that I won't spontaneously combust.

The user picture on my laptop is a photo of me, Best Friend Boy, Etch-a-Sketch, and Shutterbug at our high school graduation. I uploaded that photo right before starting college and have never gotten around to changing it. Mostly I don't even notice it anymore, but as I was logging on just now I randomly rediscovered its existence.

When I randomly rediscovered the photo's existence, I remembered the day it was taken. High school graduation is another time of major life changes. When we graduated from high school, all four of us had an idea of how our lives were going to go.

All four of us were (to varying degrees) wrong.

It's a good thing we didn't know it that day--how wrong we were. Making those major life changes was scary enough when we thought we knew what we were doing. It becomes ultimately more terrifying when you realize that you don't have a clue.

It's so terrifying, in fact, that it can be paralyzing. Whenever another major life change comes along, it's tempting to stand at the precipice and ask yourself, "Am I ready for this? Am I ready for this?"

Which is fine--until the act of asking the question becomes so all-consuming that you find yourself unable to make the leap.

In the words of Lemony Snicket: "If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives."

I don't know if I'm ready.

But here I come.

The Greatest of Gifts

As I was Christmas shopping last December, many cashiers asked me for donations to various worthy causes.

DOLLAR STORE CASHIER: Would you like to donate a dollar to buy toys for children for Christmas?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: No thanks.

GROCERY STORE CASHIER: Would you like to donate a dollar to feed children for Christmas?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: No thanks.

BOOKSTORE CASHIER: Would you like to donate a dollar to buy books for children for Christmas?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: YES PLEASE.

Books are one of the greatest gifts of all. I truly believe that. Children need them more than toys; they need them more than food. Well, maybe not more than food. Though it's better to be hungry and have a full mind than it is to be well-fed with a starved imagination. Just sayin'. If you don't believe me, read A Little Princess.

Now, Shutterbug and her husband are about to become parents. Like small children, puppies, and teenagers, new parents need some guidance as they face uncharted territory.

To help provide some of that guidance, I choose baby gifts imbued with meaning. I bought some baby wipes to encourage cleanliness. I bought some baby clothes to discourage nudity.

Most importantly, I planned to give them books. To promote literacy and appreciation of this greatest gift, of course.

Books, sadly, are expensive. So when I found Dr. Seuss board books on sale 2 for $10, I was like, "Score."

I poked around, trying to decide which ones were the best ones. Although I dearly wanted to get Oh The Places You'll Go (it's supa inspirational), I settled on The ABC Book and Mr. Brown Can Moo. Can You? (The alphabet and animal sounds? Supa educational.)

Happily, I made my way to the front of the store to purchase the books. I was almost to the checkout line when something hit me with the force of a falling piano.

Shutterbug is afraid of Dr. Seuss.

The scared thing is a metaphor for Shutterbug. The pants are a metaphor for Dr. Seuss.

I returned the Dr. Seuss books to the back of the store, and Looking for Books for Baby: Round Two commenced.

After weighing the merits of P. D. Eastman and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, I settled on The Monster at the End of This Book and Another Monster at the End of This Book.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, those are books about Grover of Sesame Street fame. Grover learns he is in a book with a monster at the end of it and subsequently tries to nail/glue/solder the pages together so he doesn't have to meet the monster. In the end, he realizes he is the monster, and everything is hunky-dory. The second one is more of the same, except Elmo is there too.

I bought these books and presented them to Shutterbug at her baby shower.

MR. SHUTTERBUG: I've read those books. They were scary.

Scary? That never even occurred to me. I mean, sure they're about monsters, but the monsters are lovable and fluffy. Though come to think of it, Elmo's habit of referring to himself in the third person is rather terrifying...and however you slice it, these are books with monsters at the end of them...

First the Dr. Seuss books, then this. It seems that my subconscious is determined to scar Shutterbug's child for life.

By Any Other Name

While cleaning my room I found one of my recent to-do lists. I had written my name at the top, probably out of homework habit.

I love the way my name looks. Shutterbug once wrote my name in several different ways, just for me.

But even I think it's amusing that I wrote my name on a to-do list. I mean, there's absolutely no reason for that. Unless someone else lived in my room with me and wrote the same to-do list on the same stationary in the same handwriting. In which case I would have more serious problems to worry about.

I think I'll go unnecessarily write my name on other things. Like my shoelaces. The tires of my car. Little Sister.

Fortunately

The fortune said, "You will have many friends when you need them."

"And when you don't need them, they'll be nowhere to be found," snarked Best Friend Boy, who has returned from his LDS mission to South America and who came with me to fill my habitual craving for Chinese food.

He took the other fortune cookie, the one that I hadn't selected. The fortune within complimented him on his storytelling abilities.

"I think you took the wrong one," Best Friend Boy said.

"No," I said thoughtfully, reading my fortune a second time. You will have many friends when you need them. "I don't think I did."

A while back, my pal Shutterbug started dating the future Mr. Shutterbug. She invited me and Etch-a-Sketch over to meet him. Etch-a-Sketch was soon to be engaged, and Shutterbug and her man were getting pretty serious as well.

My friends were chatting excitedly about their men. Shutterbug told us more about her relationship with her boyfriend and praised him lavishly. Etch-a-Sketch expounded upon her upcoming engagement and bemoaned the brief separation while she was at Shutterbug's and her future fiancé was at work.

"Well," I said. "My imaginary boyfriend is a doctor."

Etch-a-Sketch and Shutterbug promptly responded with, "Ohhh, awesome," and "Tell me more," and "He sounds great!"

Shutterbug's boyfriend was confused by my use of the word 'imaginary.' "So... then are you guys just not really dating yet, or-"

"____," Shutterbug addressed him in the kind of delicate voice usually reserved for discussing terminal illness, "he doesn't exist."

"Ohhhh," he said, adopting a similar tone. In that moment I was reminded of how bizarre I can be and how many friends I have in spite of that and how my friends not only put up with me but learn to adapt to my quirky personality and isn't it kind of amazing?

Believing in my imaginary boyfriends is the least of it. Best Friend Boy deserves a medal for his superhuman kindness and support. I've cried buckets of tears during heartfelt conversations with Viola. For years the Fearless One has let me ride on the coattails of her assertiveness when I can't find it within myself.

I collect true friends like other girls collect shoes. At every turn in my life where I needed someone to help me take the next step in becoming me, I found them.

I've been very fortunate. I've been very blessed. I see the hand of God in each and every friendship that I have, for how else would I be able to always find exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it? Even when I didn't know what I needed.

Even when I didn't realize I needed it.

Slowly I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't get many places worth going on my own. Companionship is key to progress. Without it, I'd stagnate and get so frustrated I would spontaneously combust.

Thanks, everybody, for helping me avoid spontaneous combustion.

Straightfaced

My friend Dostoevsky once told Older Sister, "I am friends with Awkward Mormon Girl because she can say anything with a straight face."

Dostoevsky is Dostoevsky, so he can get away with saying this. It would be utterly bewildering coming from someone else. That being said, I still don't entirely understand why he considers my ability to deadpan my most friendship-worthy characteristic.

But I can say lots of things with a straight face. Which is useful, as I do theatre and specialize in comedy, but which causes me problems in nontheatrical settings.

For instance, someone might ask me something like, "Would you like some potatoes?" And I might respond, just as a bit of teasing, "I hate potatoes." I would say this in an overly sincere tone of voice and with an eyebrow quirk to show that I'm kidding. However, about ninety-eight percent of the time the someone who asked if I wanted any potatoes would say, "Oh."

I would then realize that my delivery was perfect--too perfect. Quickly I'd explain that I was just joking and that I love potatoes. Then, to prove myself, I would proceed to eat so many potatoes it would be scary.

Of the people who initially take me seriously, maybe fifty-one percent quickly realize I am kidding. Then they kind of laugh or roll their eyes or whatever. But the other forty-nine percent are like, "What?" Or, "I thought you just said you hate potatoes!" Or they simply watch my potato eating with a look that says they're very, very concerned.

It's like they've never seen anyone eat six potatoes in rapid succession before.

Potatoes, however, are the least of my problems. I've seriously offended people I care about and chased away many attractive fellows simply because sometimes nobody can tell when I'm joking, and even when I flat-out tell people that I'm joking, half of them don't believe me anyways.

(I had to write that in italics because it's super-important. To me and to you and to the well-being of the world at large and to everyone taking the AP tests about now).

I guess I can understand people thinking that I'm being serious in real life. After all, I have mad theatre skillz which of course means that everything I say in person is automatically terribly convincing. Something like that.

My writing skillz must also be terribly convincing also, because I have an additional problem: sometimes people tend to take the ridiculous things that I write seriously, too.

Back in the day, I had an English teacher named Miss Kantspell. Miss Kantspell ran the school newspaper. That was all I knew about her on the first day of school. If I had known her better, I definitely would have written about recycling when she gave us the assignment of writing a newspaper article. Recycling is a safe topic. It's serious. No one jokes about recycling. Really, no one does. I mean, if right now you tried to think of a good recycling joke you wouldn't be able to.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

See? None. No recycling jokes. Not even Google has any. Recycling is the safest topic in the world to write an article on but, alas! At my tender age, I did not realize that. Nor did I realize the danger that would have made me choose a safe topic in the first place.

What I did realize was that while I liked being published, writing an article Miss Kantspell would consider worthy of publication was not my main goal. I just wanted to write about something interesting, have fun with it, and get the grade. Making people laugh was a plus, too. I've always liked to make people laugh. Publication, however? Eh. Who cared?

Unfortunately, I had zero ideas for this interesting, A-plus-worthy, hilarious article. I went about my usual business with a bit of brainstorming tension. Then, one day before drum line- oh. Yeah. I was in drum line.

Pretty much all my nontheatre friends from school were in the band: Best Friend Boy, Etch-a-Sketch, Shutterbug, Runner Bean, Porch, and all the rest. Of those, most were also in drum line. I played a bass drum and so did Etch-a-Sketch and Porch.

Best Friend Boy was the lone cymbal player. I don't think he loved playing the cymbals, but he did love the drum major hats stashed away in the band room closet. He would take them out and wear them during rehearsals until one day our director, Mr. Kermit, asked Best Friend Boy if he would please stop playing dress-up with the old marching band uniforms.

At a practice around the time he was forbidden to wear the hats, Best Friend Boy commented quite thoroughly on the setup of the band room and also scolded me for not appropriating the proper tone of voice within (sometimes I raise my voice without really meaning to. It comes with being an Obnoxious).

And just like that, I knew what I was going to write about.

I wrote it fast. That thing flew onto the page like it was alive. Satisfied, I looked it over. Right away I knew it was unfit for a newspaper. I mean, first of all, it wasn't news. Also, it was ridiculous. I was a little hesitant to turn it in because it was a bit cheeky, but I'd had teachers who rewarded me for my daring before, and I figured Miss Kantspell would be no different.

She rewarded me all right. Within a few short weeks, my article was printed up all nice in the school newspaper under the title, "Students Must Follow Band Room Rules."

The Hometown High band room is not only used for band practice. It is also a place where many students hang out before, during, and after school. What most people don't know, however, is that certain things are not allowed in the band room.

Best Friend Boy, the Hometown High School Band Council Treasurer 200*-200*, sheds a little light on the subject. "No yelling in the band room," he says, then amends, "Actually, no screaming in the band room."

Another thing not allowed in the band room is taking a nap where the trumpet players sit. At least, "I wouldn't recommend it." This limitation is for students' own good as trumpet players do tend to produce a certain amount of spit that ends up on the band room floor.

Many other things are also not allowed in the band room, apparently including but not limited to the drum line cymbal players wearing fancy drum major hats. Best Friend Boy personally does not support this rule but respects the fact that the band teacher, Mr. Kermit, has nixed it. Best Friend Boy says perhaps someday he will make a list so more people can be aware of what is and what is not allowed in the band room.

That's what it looked like, sitting in all its glory smack above Runner Bean's very much sincere piece, "The Band Plays With Power and Passion."

Miss Kantspell had not realized that the entire article was meant to be a joke. She thought this piece of ridiculousness was actually meant to be a legit piece of news. I'm writing in italics again to stress how REALLY important this is. This article cannot be taken seriously. How could anyone take this seriously?!

Miss Kantspell could, because, as I more fully learned later, Miss Kantspell was what we call "mind blind" to sarcasm, meaning that irony and humor were often lost on her.

Now, Hometown High is an oddball, as far as high schools go. The students there have always tended to be a little off-the-wall in their sense of humor, by which I mean they can laugh at anything and everything if it's delivered correctly. A ton of my classmates would normally have appreciated my article under other circumstances. But because it was printed as an apparently serious piece of news, it did not inspire laughter. Instead, it brought forth much confusion.

BEST FRIEND BOY: I saw your article. You do know that I was kidding about that band room rule stuff, right?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I was kidding too! It was a joke!

OTHER FRIENDS: That sure was an interesting article...

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: It was a joke!

CLASSMATES: Your article is, uh, well-

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: It was supposed to be a joke.

OLDER SISTER: I read your article.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: IT'S! A! JOKE! AUUUUUUUURRRGGHH! *spontaneously combusts*

The End

P.S. Miss Kantspell, if you're reading this, I didn't actually spontaneously combust. It's a joke. A JOKE. A JOKE, I TELL YOU! *DIES OF FRUSTRATION*

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(That was also a joke.)