015

Here’s one. It happened this morning on my way to work. I call it - His First Day.

The doors opened up at the Trolley station where a young couple was waiting. The husband wearing a new looking suit with pinstripes, and the wife, in a coat over her sweats, hair a little disheveled, each had one hand on a stroller holding a tightly-swaddled baby. Husband shouldered his leather bag and kissed her quickly, looked into her eyes to say something soft, something only for her. She smiled, they broke off, and he boarded the train. He took a seat by the window facing the station, and didn’t stop gazing at his wife and baby. I looked out the window to look at them too. His wife, gazing back at him, was absolutely radiant, and she beamed at him with so much pride and love. As the train started to pull away her lips mouthed a simple “love you.” And off we went. Husband opened up his Tribune. I went back to my iPod. But that was a great way to start a Wednesday.

014

Here's a first. I'm sitting in a restaurant this evening, waiting to rendez-vous with my friend Carri. "I'm ten minutes away," she calls to say. "Stay near your phone I'll call you back soon." "You got it!" I reply, then hang up. I then proceed to pack up everything in my bag and exit the restaurant, leaving my cell phone on the table. I seem to have a subconscious aversion to instruction compliance. When Carri called back, I told her what I did. "Okay, Mary. I'll meet you in front of The Gap. Throw your phone into a garbage can, I'll be there soon." It worked. I kept my phone close. Carri should have been a shrink.

013

This is starting to become a place I really like to be.

012

I'm back after a long week of training and traveling. So tired that today I took a two-hour nap. Haven't had a Sunday nap quite like it in years. It came with entertainment.

I woke up this afternoon to some kid practicing the Notre Dame fight song on his trumpet. It's just as well, because my dream was one I apparently needed help getting out of, and a 12 year-old butchering a rented brass instrument works just fine.

I dreamt that I was spending time at the house of an old bishop from my church. I was there with a friend, and we were playing with his kids. And here's where it gets...well I'm not sure, you tell me. In the midst of some mild horsing around with the kids, the bishop toots. I dreamed my old bishop tooted. Now, in the dream, as is my custom even in reality, I pretend I don't hear anything and just keep playing. But of course it's not really the same. I'm pretending not to be wise, when I am wise. So it's a little strained, but I keep up appearances. After a few moments of this, the bishop says, "Did you hear that?" He starts to laugh. Then, and here's the part that is so funny to me, I proceed to start chattering endlessly and nervously, jumping immediately on top of the bishop's four little words. I am telling the bishop toot story after toot story. Every toot story in my arsenal. Stories of toots which are far worse, to my mind, than what the bishop brought just a moment ago. "Oh, that's nothing," I say. "There was this one time I was on this bus..." "My friend, this other time, she was on this date, right? And she thinks he's further away from her than he actually is..." It goes on and on. I'm doing this, I lucidly surmise, because I'm trying to ease the bishop's embarrassment, make him feel less sheepish. But the sad truth is that all I'm doing here is making myself the most exceptional brand of moron, the bodily function equivalent of forty toots to his one, because I cannot shut my trap. I even get some body language from the bishop himself alerting me to the fact that I am way over-doing it, and I need to find a sock and use it. My friend sits down and holds himself like a stone. And while I'm absorbing all this input, suddenly, off in the distance...an off-tune and halting fight song. I am stirred into full consciousness. Smarter, more rested, and with a greater insight into myself than two hours before. To which I say, Rally. Sons of Notre Dame.

011

For those of you that heard Jeffrey Holland's talk tonight, wasn't that a-mazing?

Okay, so here's a few more photos of what I've been doing/spending/toiling over this past weekend.

Firstly, I picked up my desk from a second hand store. The original stain was this not-too-pretty yellowish accented with some stenciled cactuses on the front drawers. Cute, but not exactly me. Yet I saw potential. All those hours in front of HGTV were put to use. I sanded it down to its knuckles, and then slapped some polyeurethane over it. I'm trading out the cactus drawers for wicker baskets, which I haven't bought yet.



Isn't it cute? Look at the great job I did!



Such craftsmanship. But the very best part about this desk...



Out of nowhere psychedelic pencil sharpener. Yesssss.

Then, I also grabbed this cool chair that was 20% off.



You might be thinking that nothing really matches in my room. And you would be right. But when it's all finished I'll show you another shot, then and only then shall ye judge.

Right now I'm packing for my trip to Palo Alto tomorrow. My first day at the new job. I will spend the entire Monday getting orientated here at the local office, then I leave from work to fly to CA for a two-day firmwide orientation. Yeah, these people are dead serious about training. Kind of leaves me no out if I screw up, you know? I'm pretty sure that even with all the multiple training days held in two separate locations I'll still need help with the fax machine. Wish me luck, friends.

p.s. went on a second date last night. a third will be happening soon. dating here is soooooo much easier than it was in boston.

010

Went to Ikea with Stacer!



It's getting there.



Also, I went on a date tonight. And it was really great.

009

Back in Salt Lake now, I spotted a bumper sticker which read: "Frodo Failed. Bush Has the Ring." Yes. Now that is more like it. Oh, and it appears Salt Lake is the land of 90's rock stations. Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Oasis. I'm pretty sure that beats country though. I don't know; ask me in a month. And another thing: every man wears a goatee. I counted close to twenty today. And that's just when I went to take out the garbage. One final observation: there is no "you." Only "ya."

008

First full day in my new place. A humble start, but a good one.




Tired but happy.



Also, I'm thinking about this for a haircut.

007

Left my hometown this morning. As a parting precious, I happened to overhear a late-boarding passenger tell his seatmate how TSA held him and "made a huge deal" over the fact that he packed an undisclosed, disassembled pistol in his suitcase. He picked it up at a rummage sale last week. It's not even loaded. He then lamented the state of national affairs with this insight: "you know...when other folks don't do good it makes it hard on everybody else." You gotta give it to him, though, you know? I mean, I panic over whether they're going to eighty-six my overpriced facial moisturizer. This guy packs a bunch of pistol parts without a flinch. That takes guts. And he had quite a large one, now that I think of it. In your face, Homeland Security. You ignoramuses.

On a separate note, let me tell you the latest in what appears to be a continuing streamline of blessings sent down from heaven. I was inches, centimeters, away from buying a new bed during the Macy's Labor Day Sale. I was ready to do it, but not too keen on spending so much green. My parents encouraged me to go forward with the purchase, mostly likely because an investment such as a new bed might help me embrace the fact that I am, in fact, an adult woman approaching her mid-thirties and no longer justified in sleeping on an undergrad-grade level twin. As if my lower back isn't already telling me this on a daily basis.

I'd gone to Macy's on Saturday, talked with the sales guy, Jesse, and picked out the mattress I wanted. I wanted to sleep on it, though. Not the mattress, the prospect. Determined to have my mind made up by Monday, the last day of the sale, I went home and talked about it with all my sisters, my parents, a few friends and our cat, Winifred. I went to bed Sunday night fully intending to drag Jen with me and make the deal.

Woke up Monday morning, and just didn't feel good about it at all. So I didn't. It would mean a list of inconveniences to not get the bed, but I'd deal with it. I'd get on craigslist, find some used thing, rent a U-haul for a day, since I don't have a car, or any friends with trucks, or any friends of any kind, and it would work out somehow.

Monday evening, I get a call from my landlady, who also happens to be a close friend. "Hey," she says. "I just left the house, and everything's all ready for you tomorrow. Quick question, the girl that's moving out left her bed here, and was wondering if you'd be interested in buying it from her. You interested?"

I mean is that cool or what? I need to make a list of all the so-called little things that have happened akin to this bed experience, all of which are so marvelous to me. I've uprooted, moved across country, and started over at least three different times since graduating from college, and this by far has been the most seamless, by far the most effortless experience I've had. And seldom can anyone say that a move of this scope could be described as effortless. It's nothing short of miraculous.

006

Oh I come from the land of Ford pickups.

Today while driving I scanned for a radio station that wasn't country and gave up. At a stop light I noted a decal on the guy's windshield, depicting Calvin's evil twin urinating on the words GUN CONTROL. Where am I? Alabama?

Maybe it's time to go back to Salt Lake. I'm starting to think a fancy dinner has to include a big wooden steakknife and a baked potato "loaded." But first you have to wait twenty minutes out front with a pager and listen to Kenny Chesney.