at least i tried.

yesterday in the general relief society meeting, they mentioned briefly about how relief society is the type of place where women will invite another woman sitting by herself to come and sit with them. (essentially, that the relief society is a society of women striving to be the type of person who cares about individuals and strives to make their lives better through charity.)

anyway.

i kept thinking to myself about how i'm often that lone woman. and how (often) i like it that way. how sometimes i think to myself when i see the relief society get up "please don't talk to me. please don't talk to me."

i realized that's probably not always a bad thing (independence, solitude, yada yada), but it's not always a good thing either. and in my case, i don't think it's a good thing.

i thought that maybe my speed bump in life will be to not be so unapproachable (or at least not be so unapproachable mentally, because people don't seem to have a problem coming up to chit chat).

so, i decided today to say hello to a woman next to me right after relief society.

she told me her name, and her last name just happened to be jolley.

"what!!! that's my last name too! no way."
i then kept chit-chatting with her (i'm sorry, but sometimes i hate chit-chat) about where she was from, why she was in utah, etc. i even introduced her to pj as "another jolley!"

well, after all of that business, i decided i was thirsty and got up to get a drink. when i came back from my agua break,

the lady had left.

[crickets]

must have scared her off. (i was getting a bit too excited about the last name jolley.)
but! a for effort, right?


happy sabbath, everyone.

there are a pile of fashion magazines on my floor right now. not for leisure reading, but so i can draw facial features. (remember, i'm taking 12 hours of figure drawing a week.)

i was perusing some of the magazines while sketching the other day and realized how i looked at every body and every face with a pinch of salt.

it dawned on me that, because i've been drawing real bodies for twelve hours a week for the past two months, i really know what a body looks like. a real human body. flesh, blemishes, marks, hair, freckles. all of it.

i always knew that those magazines were completely photoshopped, but i never knew to what extent until now. and it gave me this sense of empowerment, knowing that i know what a body looks like, and that those bodies in magazines aren't real.

it makes me sad that people look at those magazines and feel like they need to reach this unattainable standard. because they don't. because the bodies and the people in those magazines remind me of the fake, platinum, plastic-ness of the people in the capitol in the hunger games. they aren't beautiful bodies. the bodies that i draw on a daily basis are beautiful. the real people that i see every day of my life are beautiful.

you, my friend, are beautiful.

sappy as it may be, don't let anybody else tell you otherwise.

on injuries in a river

we really are just trying, aren't we?

humanity, i guess. we just want to be loved. we just want to make it in this life. we just want things to go okay sometimes.

but life doesn't always go okay. which is the way life is. despite that, we cope and we have faith and we rely on the people who we love and who love us the most. we pick ourselves up out of the mud, dust ourselves off, let the scrapes and the bruises heal, and we keep diving.

stuff and its emotional baggage

we're all going through stuff.
the stuff where you want to just lay on the floor, listening to styx.
or the stuff where you don't want your heart on your sleeve.
the stuff where you have to say good bye. when good bye should never have to be said.

that's one thing that has surprised me most about the human race: we really aren't alone in our miseries.

i mean, i know we're never alone (this is where my firm belief and knowledge of a loving heavenly father comes into play) but sometimes it's consolation to know that we as people are together. trying to live. trying to cope. trying to love. trying to do our best with the circumstances given to us.

kinda makes you want to be a little bit nicer, doesn't it?

charity

if there's anything i've learned the past few days, it's that people are genuinely good.

i think i've had this cynical view of the world, thinking that everybody is out to get everybody else. but that wasn't the case for the man who gave me his seat in the metro during rush hour yesterday morning.

not the case for:

the other man on the metro
who picked up something someone else dropped
and stopped him before he left.

the woman who offered sadie pretzels
when she exclaimed she was hungry.
not offering them in a creepy way.
remember that.

the random people we run into willing to humor us
and our picture taking madness.

the senior missionary woman at the visitors' center
who gave us a ride back to the metro.
but let's hope she's got some christian charity in her, right?

so to those people in the world, and any other person who will help us out this week, i say.

thank you.

hello to the czech republic

wow. my day was made just now.

i went onto my sitemeter, which is probably the best invention since sliced bread (that and a 5 pound jar of pickles at sam's club for only $4) and noticed that someone from the czech republic viewed my blog.

how did they find it? they went onto google.
what did they put in the search engine?

bathrooms realizations

yes. yes yes yes yes yes. man. sometimes i love people.

and i'm a little weirded out that apparently i blog about realizations in the bathroom.
oh well. potty humor isn't wasted on me.

request

also, my delightful friend emily is in a blogger brawl and is in the final four (if she wins, she gets to write for their website permanently...something she deserves, since she's wonderfully talented with words).

if you're reading my blog right now, you should definitely vote here.
sorry ben. your article just didn't compare.

many thanks.

i need people

although barbara may be crazy, she's fabulously talented.
the crazy thing was pointed to my dad, who isn't a fan.

i leave you with this gem. i find it absolutely enchanting. especially around 4 minutes into the song.

barbara sure does look beautiful, doesn't she?

the jkb is a magical place

4:44 make a wish.

i've found that as i make a wish at those times in the day, they end up becoming silent prayers.

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we

are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.” -george eliot

i wished that day.
i was with one of the most delightful people i know, and as i left she checked her phone.

"4:44. make a wish."
i walked down the south stairs, and wished.
i looked at the clock facing me as i came down and wished.

then i walked outside the building, and part of what i wished for came true.
i ran back in to tell emily. it was fate, she said.

now. there are two eggs in the basket. plus a really little one.

i think it's spring that did it to me

i was reading in a book recently that life isn't about all the big things that happen.

yes, the "big things" (like going to kindergarten, learning to drive a car, going to college, mission, marriage, kids, etc.) are incredibly important moments to existence. but the real substance of our lives is in the small things.

every single emotion felt: whether it be how i felt after i lost, when my heart beats powerfully sporadic for one reason or another, feeling alive after running 2.3 miles, being embarrassed daily in my french class....those make up me.

every single person met: family and friends obviously, the girl who complimented my red jacket, the guy who held the door open for me, the cashier at the bookstore who always comments on my buying peanut butter m&ms. they make up me.

the missionaries.whit leigh.sadie jean.that one missionary.britt. jake.mom. dad.cross-country runner.muslim.wyoming boy.

all part of me.

every small thing: those leaves i crunch on when i walk up the stairs from hell. driving with becs to get overpriced paninis in stella. the red-ness of strawberries. the goldfish who survived against all odds. how my best friend legitimately loves a boy and how happy that makes me. singing queen with whit.

those make up my story.

and for the first time in my life, i realized how grateful i am that they do make up my story. the goods. the bads. the in-betweens.

because when it comes down to it
life is all about the in-betweens.

the ides of march

it's been a day of:

• car alarms outside my apartment that stay on for two hours no lie
• studying
• blessings
• death cab for cutie
• dieter f. uchtdorf
• french mistakes
• blessings
• spring-like weather
• becca and jana at wal-mart
• yogurt gluttony

and last but not least

blessings.

photo via flickr

to you

i love love.

as i walked home today in the chilly march weather, i made this realization today. it was rather revolutionary, considering love has done me wrong one too many times (my theory behind why emily dickinson is so melancholy).

i walked, and i listened to garbled information from people passing me by. i walked, and i stole glances at the girl walking to class with stress in her eyes, the boy coming out of the science building--the couples walking hand-in-hand.

i love loving peanut butter m&m's.
i love loving art.
i love loving people

like my dad and his loudness.
my mom and her honesty.
my sister and brother and their banana fight the other day.
like my granny and her bread rolls.
like my grandma and her crossword puzzles.
like my granddad and his supposedly vast amounts of knowledge.

like the missionaries.
like sexy sadie. like whit leigh.

i love loving stella.
i love loving literature and learning and french.

i even love loving that one time. at that one place. in draper.

and despite everything that i haven't loved about the past little while, i may or may not love loving what i learned.

i'm pretty sure i'll love loving that, too.
it's just gonna take me a while to get there.

insomnia

so instead of being asleep to get up at 4:45 tomorrow morning for work, i'm here.

blogging.

there are about thirteen people crammed into our tiny living room downstairs who are being incredibly loud and boisterous, playing games and laughing. it's cool. i love laughing.

and you know, even if they weren't down there, taking me away from my sleep, the loud, boisterous thoughts in my head would keep me up. swirling around in a vast void of nothing and yet everything.

it's rather irritating, to say the least.

the thoughts. not the people downstairs.

cupcakes

for the sake of humanity, i have christened today fun-fetti friday.

i had to bring treats to my early morning meeting for my early morning job today, and i decided that the extra cupcakes that i made of the 48 cupcakes that came into existence last night would accompany me throughout my day and brighten the lives of others because really...cupcakes have the power to do just. that.

plus, since it's snowy and we were teased here in provo with nice, spring-like weather earlier this week the snow is a bit of a slap in the face everybody needs a little pick-me-up.

yay for fun-fetti friday! cheers!

in the library: two seconds later

and then there was celine dion.
larry. you are a very confident man.

in the library

i'm currently in the library right now and instead of studying for my music test which i have to take before 4 today, i'm looking at all the public itunes of other people. i think perusing through peoples' music tells a lot about a person.

for instance, i'm listening to joseph and the technicolor dreamcoat from "larry's library." he also likes battlestar galactica.

represent, larry. represent.

If you want a post not ranting about people, don't read this

We all know how the most....well, "quirktastic" individuals like to sit next to me (or rather, I sit next to them) in classes. Today, the kid I sat next to in psychology took the cake.

I came in late, straggled to a free seat, trying to climb over legs, backpacks, and whatever else people put* at their feet, and sat next to this kid. He seemed friendly enough...maybe. Well, that inkling of friendliness left after a little while.

Now, I like my psychology professor. He's pretty funny, even if all he does is teach off Powerpoint Slideshows. Apparently this kid didn't! After everything my professor said, this kid came up with some sort of retort muttered under his breath. At first I was like, "Meh, whatever." But after an entire class of this, I was ready to just turn to him and say, "Will you just SHUT UP!" That's mean, I know...which is why I didn't do it. To top it off, he was totally looking over at my screen all obnoxiously, so I kept trying to think of some random thing to pop up on my computer that would disturb him. The only thing that I could think of was pictures of my friend on Facebook without his shirt on. Not terribly disturbing. He was all buddy-buddy with the girl next to him, too, who was the girl looking over my shoulder a few weeks ago.

Well, misery loves company. Except substitute the word 'misery' for any other word. Swears are allowed. Be creative.

Oh, and coming soon....a non-negative, non-rant post!

*Can I just say, in trying to spell "put" right here, I honestly typed out the word "poot." I think I've gone Irish without realizing it.