Cawledge

Oh, hey there Blogland. Long time no see! You look well. How's the family? The children? The weather? Oh, who am I kidding? We all know that I'm really here to talk about myself, not you. So let's get right to it.

Once upon a time, I went to college. I was a cute little baby-faced 18 year old full of smiles and hidden anxiety. Everyone had told me, "College is great because you can really just be whoever you want to be! It's a fresh start!" And I believed them. The problem was, I wasn't sure exactly who I wanted to be. Should I be the indie-art girl? The nerdy book-lover? the super social one? The dedicated to school one? The mysterious, quiet one? I didn't know, but I knew that I had very few friends going to Rexburg with me, so I would have to choose someone to be. Some person to become with this supposed "fresh slate" I was given.

Hopefully you all know where this comes from. But if you don't, it's from X-Men First Class. This character is Darwin, or Morph, because he adapts to survive. There's this awesome scene where he actually dies, but he morphs into like a gazillion things first, and that's what I picture when I talk about my silly "trying to create a new me" phase in college. Trying to morph to fit these imagined situations in my head, and as a result, not being able to actually be anything.

The few days before leaving I was packing my stuff, like most college kids do.  Quite literally everything I chose was deliberated over with the idea that all of the people I met would be looking at each shirt I wore, each bobby-pin, each picture on my wall, and formulating an opinion about me based on their opinions of that. Even my pajama shirts were subjected to this weird judgement. "I'll bring this shirt because it shows I was involved in high school, so they'll know I'm social. I'll bring this one because it says "Party Hero" on the back and that will make me seem fun. I'll bring this one because it's an EFY shirt and they'll know I also like spiritual things..." Etc etc etc... It was ridiculous I tell you. Not to mention gave me ridiculous amounts of stress.

Everything I did was based on this idea that I could choose who I wanted to be. That I could become an entirely new person and "start fresh" at college. Now, I hope everyone knows that this is a ridiculous lie that people tell you just to make you excited for school. Of course you can't change your personality with the ease of flipping over a coin. You can't go back and cleanse your persona of 18 years of trauma and damage and personality-shaping experiences simply because you move to a new place and don't know anyone. It didn't help, of course, that there were about 17 "New Emily's" that I wanted to become, and I didn't know which one to choose. So my first few days at school were full of a lot of posturing, of saying things that would help whatever supposed "new me" I was choosing to be that hour. I wanted people to know that I was artsy and creative, but not weird. I wanted to be super social, but not annoying. Spiritually strong and grounded but not "Molly Mormon". Smart and introspective, but also adventurous and fun. I don't know if you were keeping track, but that's a lot of things for any one person to become, especially overnight. Needless to say, I made a lot of weird first-impressions on people. Which I didn't find out about until 3 or 4 months later, when the effort of trying to write on this "new slate" had made me lazy and I was finally able to relax, stop trying so hard, and just be.

My room-roommate, Kaylin, who later became one of my best friends, thought that I was super quiet and weird and only wanted to sit in my room and listen to John Mayer and that I didn't like to have fun or smile or laugh.

Another roommate, Jaide, who also later became one of my best friends, thought I hated her and was super mean.

One kid thought I was ridiculously pushy and annoying, because I kept asking him if he remembered my name. (Why? I have no clue. I was just so stressed out about creating a new me.)

Several people thought I was incredibly negative because all I could talk about was how great Colorado was, and how different (read: better) it was (is) than Idaho. (Sub-conscious home-sickness? Probably. Definitely. But let's be real, Colorado is the best place on earth, so how can you blame me?)

Others were under the impression that I was bipolar, crazy, weird, and even twins.

And the list goes on. But I'm already embarrassed enough, so I'll stop there.

I know, it's shocking that I even made friends that semester, what with being the most ridiculously fake and insecure person alive. I'm surprised too, no worries. Let's add to this stress the fact that I had never lived on my own before, had no idea that baking every other day would make me fat, and was in a really weird time of personal, emotional and spiritual change and wandering. Basically, I was a huge mess. Luckily, I hid it pretty well, so hopefully most people just thought I was this weird, eccentric, super-freak, as opposed to a weird, eccentric, super-freak on the verge of a complete emotional, spiritual and mental break down. Actually, I even hid that from myself, and I didn't realize what a mess I was until almost a year later, when I was much more stable and normal and way less of a super-freak.

I don't remember where I was going with this post, to be honest. Actually, this is not at all what I was intending to write about, but I'll go with it. So let's make a list, because I like lists.

How Not to be a Super-Freak Your First Semester of College

1. Accept that there is no such thing as a "clean slate," or "fresh start." That sounds depressing, but it's actually a very good thing. We are the sum total of our experiences, whether good or bad, and if a sudden life change like, maybe, moving 800 miles away to college, could suddenly erase all of that, you would be wandering around like drunk person in a laser tag zone. Totally disoriented, overwhelmed, and bumping into walls like nobody's business. You would have no sense of self, direction, or idea how to relate to other people. Believe me, I tried it, it didn't work. (The clean-slate thing, not the drunk laser tagging, although I have played laser tag with drunk people, and that's actually super funny.)
2. Wear things because you want to, not because you think it'll give other people a certain impression of you. Because it will end up with you wearing something absurd, like sweatpants with a dressy top and curled hair because you think that will make people know that you can be casual and cute at the same time but really they'll just think you suck at getting dressed.
3. People don't need to know every aspect of your personality all at once. This was my main problem, I think. I was paranoid that people would get the wrong impression of me, so I tried to give them every impression of me at the same time, which is silly and confusing. So here's the thing, I get it. You're multi-faceted and interesting and there is oh so much more beneath the surface for you. But don't try and shove all of that amazingness down people's throats the first time you meet, mmmk?
4. Eating dessert every 2 days will make you fat. Your jeans don't fit anymore? Yes, it's because you're growing, but ladies if you're in college, chances are you stopped growing upwardsw like 2 years go, and the only way you're growing now is outwards. That's not a good thing. Hit the gym and hide the baking products.
5. Relax. This is what I was not good at. I was super stressed about making friends and having a good impression on everyone, so I was pretty much incapable of actually being myself. That stress manifested itself in me being unable to stress properly about my schoolwork and ended up with me watching a gazillion hours of netflix and like 4 seasons of Chuck in as many days.
6. Sitting in a cute pose and looking hot will not make boys come talk to you. I don't care if you're the cutest girl ever, if you sit by yourself, without talking to anyone, you're not going to get asked on any dates. My first semester, I thought that looking cute was enough to get attention from guys, but the problem is this: The guy/girl ratio at BYU-I is about 3:1. Three girls to every one guy. And you know what? Chances are at least one of those girls is cuter than you, and the other girl is out there starting conversations and being more awesome than you. So in reality, looking cute really is not enough. Stop lying to yourself and go start some conversations and make friends. My first semester, I went on 2 dates. Just two. Both of them were weird. My second semester, once I started making friends and talking to people (and not being a super-freak) I was going on an average of 2 dates a week. That's a big difference.
7. People don't really care about you. Again, this sounds bad, but hear me out. People do care. I care. Someone cares. Don't go jump off a bridge, please. What I mean by this, however, is that people are way too concerned with their own lives to pay attention to what you wear, how you decorate your room, or how many times you've done your hair the same way this week. Even if they do notice those things, they definitely don't care enough to start making conjectures about you based on that. So relax, do your hair how you want it, wear what makes you comfortable because you like it, not because it says something about you. Say what you want to say because you want to, not because it'll make something think a certain way about you. Once you realize this, you can relax and be yourself and then you'll have infinitely more fun. I promise.

Okay, Blogtopia. It's been a nice reunion. Good to catch up with you. I'm tired of writing now, so I'm going to go do anything other than stay here. I'll try to write more frequently, I promise. Just cut me some slack, because I'm back in school and trying hard to not be a super-freak. Plus my romantic life is more ridiculous than a Spanish soap-opera at the moment. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime... 12 months from now. Next time I'll write a funny story. Kaybye!

Evil Villain Sweat

I don't even know how to start this post because I am so distraught. (Warning: approaching is a First World Problem) The other day, I saw a box of Lucky Charms cereal in my cupboard. I don't even really like Lucky Charms, but we never ever ever have sugar cereal, so when we do I eat copious amounts of it even if it's kind of gross like Lucky Charms. Anyway, I saw the box and got hit instantly with a craving for cereal. However, I was working. I had brought my nanny kids to my house for the day, and if I starting eating pure sugar soaked in milk, they would want some too. But I am selfish and didn't want to share I didn't want to give them sugar because it's bad for them and would ruin their appetites and I'mthebestnannyever. So I decided the Lucky Charms would have to wait until after work.

So later, after roughly 12 hours of anticipation, I am seriously looking forward to my cereal. I get the box out while talking to my mom about the pros and cons of Lucky Charms marshmallows. I pour a huge bowl, while still talking to my mom about it. I get a spoon. I crush the box and start heading toward the fridge when my mom turns around, looks at my bowl, and goes, "Oh, we're out of milk."

And with those five words, my whole world crashed to the floor. Or maybe it was just my spoon. Regardless, I was upset.

Maybe now would be a good time to explain something about myself to you. Growing up, we always had about 5 gallons of milk in the fridge at any given time. We usually drank a big glass of milk for every meal, and all through high school my breakfasts consisted solely of Carnation Instant Breakfast, which is just chocolate milk with extra vitamins. So when we ran out of milk, it meant I didn't have breakfast that day, which is always a harrowing experience.

That mentality followed me into my first year at college.  When I ran out of milk, it didn't matter if my cupboard was completely full of nutella, bread, puppy chow, noodles, soup and myriad other edible items. It didn't matter if the fridge was full of eggs and leftovers. When I ran out of milk, I thought that I had also run out of food. I became convinced that I had nothing to eat and would definitely starve unless I immediately went to the store and bought some 2%. The two semesters when I didn't have a car made that pretty rough, however. I would sometimes have to last for hours, even days, existing on whatever measly crumbs I could find until I could find a ride to the store and bring home that gallon of milk. Once it was sitting comfortably in the fridge, my food cupboard was suddenly full to abundance with decadent meals like Rice-A-Roni and PB&J, and I could eat to my heart's content. It was always an emotional experience.

My cupboard without milk

My cupboard with milk.
Meaning I would immediately eat myself into a food coma. Which is maybe why I gained so much weight at school.

But back to the Lucky Charms. My world/spoon had just crashed to the floor, because my mom told me we didn't have any milk. I opened the fridge just to see for myself, and sure enough, no cow milk to be found. But then I saw it. Sitting right against the edge of the fridge, where the real milk was supposed to be... Two boxes of rice milk.

Ordinarily I would have gagged and walked away, but I was so excited for my Lucky Charms, plus the picture on it looked so creamy and thick and milk-ish. And it was now organic! Surely a substitute milk wouldn't make much difference, especially not if it's just there to moisten the cereal a bit, right? Wrong. Listen close, blogland: rice milk is probably what they serve in Hell, just to give people a little hope of tasting real milk and then crush them by what a ridiculously bad substitute it is. Rice milk is the stuff of nightmares. It tastes like I imagine the sweat of true evil villains would taste like. Which is definitely a gross thing to imagine, let alone have to drink. I don't even know why we had it in the fridge, or why anyone anywhere would drink some and think "Yum! This is definitely as good as real milk, I'll continue buying it!"

And what's worse is that I still really really wanted my cereal. So I tried to muscle through it. I tried to focus only on the taste of the crunchy marshmallows and soggy frosted shapes, while ignoring the all at once too-sweet and incredibly bitter taste of the imposter milk. I even made it through about half of my bowl before raising my white flag of shame and dumping it down the drain, hopes and dreams completely obliterated.

The next morning, joy of joys, I discovered that somehow four gallons of real milk had appeared in the night. Probably a gift from the milk-fairy, who surely felt bad about my terrible experience with pure milkish evil the night before. I breathed a sigh of relief until I saw, right next to it, [insert scary music here] two cartons of Almond Milk. Someone in my house clearly has it out for me. I will find you, imposter milk buyer, and I when I find you, I will question you. And after I question you, I will complain about your poor choice in "milk".

UPDATE: I think it deserves to be noted that not all imposter milk tastes like the sweat of villains. Chocolate Soy Milk is essentially liquified candy mixed with crack. Also, I just realized this is basically just like my Netflix post, except with milk. Sorry for the unintentional repetitiveness, sub-par substitutes just really upset me, apparently. Kaybye.

Accidental Rejection Syndrome

I alluded to something in this post. Something I'm not proud of, but will share with you in more detail because it's a serious issue that needs to be brought to light. Alright, here it goes. I'm just going to say it. No big deal. Just spit it out. The truth is...

I have a serious case of Accidental Rejection Syndrome, or ARS. ARS is a highly infectious and dangerous syndrome that anyone can be infected with, at any time. I have yet to find a cure.

For me, it all starts with my atrociously bad cell phone communication skills. I simply suck at responding to messages, answering phone calls, or even knowing where my phone is most of the time. I know, people my age are supposed to be glued to our phones, thumbs flying and messages going in and out every .5 second on the... half second. But somehow, when all the mothers of my generation were eating whatever they ate to turn all my peers into techno-communication freaks, my mom was busy chasing my four older siblings and drinking lemonade. Which, as it turns out, does not turn people into techno-comm freaks. So now I have a deficiency. Thanks, Mom.

Sometimes, when I'm at a party or something of the sort, I start talking to people. Sometimes "people" ends up being a guy around my age (and by that I mean between 2 and 7 years older than me), who knows no one that I know, and vice-versa. We will call him RandomPartyGuy. Sometimes, after a conversation of some length, RandomPartyGuy says something along the lines of "Hey, let me get your number, and we'll go dirtbiking/snowboarding/paintballing/on a date." So I give him my number. Sometimes I'm excited about it because he's not ugly at all. All of these sometimes end up happening at the same time about once every month or two. And then the following happens:


Boy texts me either that night or the next day:

"Hey, this is RandomPartyGuy. It was great meeting you!"

I respond a few hours later:

"Oh hi, RandomPartyGuy! I'm glad you texted me! It was great talking to you the other night!"

He responds immediately:

"Yea I would be crazy not to text you! You were super fun & adventurous! Two great qualities & I'm sure you have soo many more!"

 (That may or may not be, but definitely is an exact quote. Note the proper spelling, punctuation and capitalization. Also, the compliments. Totally swoon-worthy, yes? Yes.)

I then read the text, note the cuteness, have a brief internal debate over whether or not to be creeped out. Usually I decide he's not a weirdo and start formulating a sassy response, but end up getting distracted and put my phone down instead.

Thirteen hours later, I remember I was having a conversation with guy who wants to take me on a fun adventure. Go back through my messages, and realize it's been a ridiculous amount of time since he texted me. Have a brief moment of guilt. Decide to text him back and explain that the place in my brain where phone-communication skills should be is occupied instead by the title font and cover design of almost every book or movie I've ever seen. Except I don't give him that much detail. Mostly I just explain that I suck at communication.

Thirty minutes later, he responds and tells me he forgives me, and he sucks too sometimes. Tells me good news about his dirtbike related injuries. I respond in record time. Seriously, only like, two minutes. He responds quickly as well. (this puts our total up to a whopping six text messages in 24 hours or so. Going strong... for me.)

Three days later (today), I realize I never answered RandomPartyGuy, and I can tell by the lack of him texting me to re-start the conversation that he feels completely rejected and kind of offended and has already written me off even though I totally would have been interested in getting to know him better and was even pretty excited about it. I am just incapable of showing that interest by spending the second it takes to respond in a normal period of time. Like any normal girl, not afflicted with ARS, would. 

Approximately 3-6 weeks later, essentially the same situation will happen, but with a new RandomPartyGuy. (I will never hear back from the other one). And then three to nine weeks after that, the Accidental Rejector (me) will probably have unwittingly struck again, leaving another RandomPartyGuy confused and offended. This cycle has been happening with varying frequency, (excluding a few months when I was in a relationship) for the past two years or so. I simply can't help it, Blogland. I have a sickness. Accidental Rejection Syndrome is a real and under-represented problem facing many of America's youth who have no real problems to worry about. If you, or someone you know has suffered from ARS, I want to let you know that you are not alone. I can't promise that it will get easier or better, but I can promise you I have hope that it maybe will, eventually.

Men, if you're reading this, please take this as encouragement and consider that maybe the girl you think is ignoring you is actually, like me, simply incapable of having the brainpower and attention span necessary to maintain extended textual communication. Text her again, I bet she'd like it.

Women, if you're reading this and thinking it sounds strangely familiar, learn from my mistakes. Go through your phone right now and respond to all the people you have so rudely ignored. Throw the guys a bone. Maybe they'll bring it back, if they're not too wounded.

Last but certainly not least, I want to send a shout-out to the RandomPartyGuys that I may have personally infected with ARS. I'm sorry. Please don't feel rejected. I really (probably) was interested in getting to know you and going on a date. You are (probably) a super cool guy. I just (actually) suck, sometimes. I promise, it's not you, it's me. Really.

The Time I Moved Into a Horror Story (Part One)

 Once upon a time I lived in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. I was content in my own little sheltered, combined bubbles of mormonism and upper-middle class suburbia, where we never locked our doors, left our bikes out in the yard without fear and I often went walking by myself far too late at night. I lived in the same house for 15 years. After being at school for about 10 months, I heard from my sister that my parents were thinking seriously abut moving.

Here's the deal: my family has been trying to move for as long as I can remember. My parents would decide every few months that our house was too circular, or too small, or too close to the neighbors, and we would start stopping at every "for sale" sign we saw and picking up fliers. We would take family drives into the mountains to look at random houses with tons of acreage for sale. After a while, I stopped getting excited over the possibility of a four-story house, or a library, or a room with a window seat in it (okay, that's a lie. I will always love window seats.) I stopped looking forward to maybe moving because it simply never happened. There was always something wrong with every house we looked at, and so we stayed where we were, in our circularly laid-out house with a backyard that the neighbors could see right into. Needless to say, when my sister told me our parents were looking at a house, I didn't bother getting excited about it.

And then she told me that my parents had actually bought a property. I was amazed and weirded-out. What? My parents are actually moving? After years and years of talking about it, it's actually happening? Then I hear we were moving from our neighborhood, about 30 minutes outside of Denver, comfortably located in the center of quite truly anything you could ever want or need, to Larkspur. The smallest town ever, about an hour and fifteen minutes outside of Denver. We had some good family friends who had moved out there a few years before, and I had always thought they lived SO ridiculously far away.

Let me tell you about Larkspur, friends.

I stole this picture off the internet. I don't even know if it's a real sign, because I'm pretty sure I've never seen it, and there's only really one or two roads leading in or out of the town, so if it were real, you'd think I would have seen it, right?

Larkspur's population is about 190 people, and the amount of land area is a whopping 1.56 square miles.
 Larkspur has a total of one point five roads. Along the one road you will find: a gas station, two pizza places, two bars, a Mexican restaurant, a salon, a park, a trailer park, and a huge fire station. We have no stoplights, and a single stop sign. The speed limit is 25 MPH, and at that speed it takes approximately 160 seconds to get from one end of town to the other, including the stop sign.

There is technically another road, that intersects with the main road, but the only real reason that road exists is to cross the train tracks and provide access to the Renaissance festival which takes place there every weekend all summer. Yup. The Renaissance festival. Which explains why we have so many food places (and bars), for a remote little town with very few people.

Now, why Larkspur? My parents had found a fantastic deal on a house with 6 acres, about three or six miles outside of the actual "town." My dad has always wanted land, and so they were pretty excited about it. What I didn't know, however, was that they had gotten a great deal on the house because the previous owner had blown it up. Apparently he had gotten foreclosed on, which made him angry, and so he accidentally let his RV roll straight into the gas line in the kitchen... making a huge explosion.

So this was my first impression of the house... Needless to say I was super excited.

Doesn't this just say "welcome home"?

So we bought the house, and started fixing it up, and improving it greatly. It took a long time, and a lot of effort.

Child Labor Laws are for fools.

The property is settled in a beautiful valley, with a mountain to our backs, a view of red rocks down one side, and horses running through fields on the other. Needless to say, it was picturesque. We routinely would find deer running or grazing on our land. It was like a real-life fairy tale. Until things got scary.

Along with the property came several... structures. They included a chicken house, a goat barn, a garage, a barn, a shed, a pig roaster, and a grotto (According to wikipedia: A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans). So basically it was a man cave. But we'll get back to the grotto in a minute. Actually, it's probably going to have it's own post, it's so bizarre. The other structures were all pretty normal, aside from some weird graffiti on the shed:

It says "Democrat Republican Liar" but all the letters are crossed out and marked over.

The grotto and pig roaster, from the outside.

A close up of the grotto's entryway...

So that's what the grotto looks like. Note the beer bottles around the edge. Behind each one of them is carved a name in the concrete. Sticking out of the sun is a concrete mold of the position the Pope holds his hand when he blesses people (or something along those lines) There are also random concrete faces, possibly of saints, and a little spanish dancer/fighter man. Now, if all of that isn't weird enough, wait until we take this tour inside the man-cave, because that's where things start to get really weird.

To Be Continued...