It's a great day at Five Star Painting for the last time.

Today was my last day at Five Star Painting. *tear* 

It's been a fun (if short) job. I loved talking to Brittany over the cubicle every afternoon and taking good-natured crap from Conrad and making jokes that customers didn't understand on the phone. I liked going after Fed Ex (or hearing Brittany go after them, which was much more entertaining because she swore at them) when they lost our booth, taking naps early in the morning (I mean . . . okay, yeah, but I always woke up when the phone rang!), secretly correcting Larry's comma placement in the notes when I was doing follow up calls, and developing a good rapport with my franchisees, which included going to the Jazz game to meet Mike James. 

Yesterday Brittany showed up with a goodbye cake for me (and candles, because what's a cake without candles?) and a card that she made everyone who was there when she got to work sign. (I'm told my time off is still not approved by my boss. And also that I'm a jerk for leaving.) 

My favorite moment though, happened today, when Al, the franchisee from Atlanta, called specifically to say goodbye. We've worked together on some different follow up things for him, and we had a really good working relationship that included him saying "You go girl" when I managed to schedule estimates for him, which made me laugh a lot because he's probably in his fifties, and it just sounds funny. Anyway, Al told me that I'd done a great job, and then said that if I ever need a job in Atlanta, I can call him and he'll try to help me out. It gave me the warm fuzzies of a job well done. 

Anyway, after I created an away message so that people wouldn't try to email me and be mad when I didn't answer, and after I gave a couple of last-minute training sessions on the proper use of the copier, I clocked out for the last time. 

But I'm not leaving the facebook group. Thanks for the help getting the job, Amanda. 

Eat it.

I don't want to talk a lot about this, but I do want to say something, so here we go.

The two scariest things I've seen recently have been about eating. The first was Supersize Me, which I think I already mentioned, but in case I didn't, I watched in on Hulu one day and it made me want to do sit-ups and stop eating fast food (which I did - I've been taking lunch to work ever since, and after I eat I go for a walk, which I feel is a good thing.) It was gross and scary, and I can't believe what that much of that kind of food does to a body. Ick.

The other was Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, which I just finished. This was an incredibly well-written and horrifying book about a girl with anorexia who loses her best friend to bulimic complications right at the beginning of the book. Her friend haunts her for most of the book, encouraging her to lose more, eat less, "stay strong." It gave me a stomach ache, but I don't even know what to say beyond that. I've known for quite a long time now that things like eating disorders aren't all about being skinny, that the people who think it's all about vanity aren't seeing the whole picture. That doesn't mean that the attitude our culture has about appearance and especially about weight doesn't trigger the beginnings of things like that though, and throughout the book I felt sick whenever people told her how good she looked because she was so skinny, especially because I know that kind of thing isn't really exaggerated. I hear people say things like that all the time. I think about things like that all the time. That post about clothes? Part of the reason that wearing summer clothes is hard is that you can't layer and cover up the winter squishiness, is it not? 

What kind of crazy, mixed-up world do we live in? People make themselves sick because they eat too much or the wrong thing, or they make themselves sick trying to get rid of that extra weight from eating (at all, actually) but even the people in between who are healthy and okay still feel like they need to lose lose lose, no matter where they are. I've heard incredibly skinny girls talk about how they just needed to lose another fifteen pounds before they were happy with their weight, and I can't even believe they have that much to lose! Everyone wants to lose something, and everyone is eating food that's bad for them, pretty much all the time, and no one is happy with how they look, ever. I exaggerate some, but not that much, and it makes me sad. 

And yeah, look at the beginning of this post - the part where just watching that documentary made me feel like I needed to start working out. Yes, I should exercise more and live a more healthy lifestyle, and yes, laying off the fast food is better for me than eating it, but that shouldn't cause a panic attack of feeling fat. 

I've already said more than I meant to about this. I'm not saying anything helpful or new or even coherent. I just wish people could be happy and healthy in their own skin. 

By the way, while I was trying to find an appropriate picture to put on this post, I found this website.  Yeah. 

An excessively frivolous and girly post.

There is one thing that I hate about the coming of summer. (Besides the coming of bugs, which is just one of those necessary icks that can be easily ignored when you realize just how great it is not to be shivering anymore.) I suddenly don't know how to dress myself.
If seems like summer should be easier. Fewer clothes = not as many pieces to deal with = cinch, right? But somehow it's harder when you take away my cardigans and scarves and coats, especially because my summer wear is all either really casual t-shirt stuff or things attempting to be less casual but still kind of failing, or things that always seem too dressy for summer to me.
For example, I always want to be one of those people who wears happy summer skirts casually. I try really hard to find skirt/shirt combinations that give me that light, airy, casual skirt feeling. It just never feels right. I always feel like I'm going to church or like the shirt I pick doesn't work at all or like the shoes just don't match or dress it up too much. Then I look in magazines and it seems so easy, and I want to go shopping and fix the wardrobe, but it still ends up being about the same. I buy t-shirts that still don't match anything, skirts that still feel too dressy, and shoes that still don't work.
Is summer fashion just a state of mind? I feel like I should do a psychological analysis about why I can't just throw on a t-shirt and capris and feel comfortable, but maybe it's just that my fashion sense is underdeveloped for summer months. (Last summer, which pretty much consisted of wearing my Wight House shirt and black pants for the first half, and the same 6 outfits that I crammed into my suitcase for England during the last half.
If I complain about this again at the end of the summer, will someone please remind me that I had a rocking winter wardrobe at the end of this winter? Thank you.

The Long Hot Summer

I can't believe that I'm moving out of Provo (for what is potentially the last time) this week.

I've been grabbing some last-minute book and movie access at the Orem library (I had Little Brother and Wintergirls on hold after reading about them on Janssen's blog and getting backup recommendations on Little Brother from Miri) and I'm doing some wrap up at Five Star so that they can somehow get along without me next week. (Ha. Not full of myself at all.)

I've had some slight changes of plans this summer, starting with where I'll be working. Clark managed to wrangle me up a job doing some writing for his company, Overstock Drugstore, and Spence found me a spot in his carpool. I'll be making more money than I would have at the Wight House, and even if they weren't paying me more hourly, I'm just going to be getting more hours. I've told the Wight House that I'm up for helping them out on weekends and on some evenings, so that will help too. Ready, set, make as much money as possible to ease the fear of impending student debt. Sigh.

In the meantime, I've made what I hope will be my only splurgy ticket purchase of the summer. Erin and I are going to see Keane at Kingsbury Hall, which I think is going to be a great idea. (And Lindsey, I still wish you were here for that one. Really.) My brother Spence has told me that Bon Iver and M. Ward are doing free concerts at the Gallivan Center, so that should tide me over a bit. Otherwise, I have plans to hit Henry V at the Shakespeare Festival, have some sleepovers with some of my friends from down here, read 1984 with my sister-in-law Julie, read Return of the Native with Treb, get a hold of BBC's Little Dorrit and watch all 10 hours.

AND that's all I've got. Man, I'm in a blogging drought.

President Echohawke

So this is my former stake president. He told the same football stories at every stake conference, and I love him. 

Right or Privilege?

I need your help to answer a question that was bugging me all the way home from work. First, you need a little background.

Today is my friend James's birthday. In about a month and a half, he's going to marry my roommate Amanda, and since he had the day off, he decided he'd spend some of it looking for health insurance (which sounds like a rotten idea to me, but good on him for being responsible, even on his birthday).

The problem is that James is diabetic, and that makes him, to use the word that one of the insurance companies used, "uninsurable." Which is funny, because James is someone who really needs insurance, because he needs insulin, and since he's still a college student, he can't afford it. Obviously.

So here's my question/issue/point of confusion. I get everyone's arguments about the market system driving down prices of health care, and I hear all of you who shout that universal health care leads to long lines and poor care and so forth. I get it, and I believe you, and expensive, crappy health care sounds horrible. (I'm throwing this in here because I don't want another explanation. I understand.) I also understand that many people feel that they have earned the right to have health care because they've worked for it, etc. When I said something about this at work today, my boss asked whether I thought health care was a right or a privilege, and whether he should have to pay for my health care. Excellent question, one that has a complicated answer that my boss and I would probably never agree about, and one that I don't want to go into because I don't know as much about the whole thing as I'd like to. (By the way, I don't know that I think it's a "right," but when I hear the word "privilege" I think of something only going to the "privileged," and that's where I run into problems. I'm not sure that things have to be rights for it to be good policy to get people access to them. Despite my using it as the title, I'm not sure I love the terminology.)

But what about people like James who work hard so they can pay for things like health insurance and then can't get it? How does that play into all of this? Doesn't it seem like he needs it more than I do, since I need it "just in case" and he needs it "so he doesn't die?"

We pay for other people's educations because we've decided that it should be a right. (Although I was once in a discussion where several people wanted to throw education into the market system too. Oh good! Privatize education so that fewer people can get jobs that will make them enough money to get health care. And eat. But that's another topic that I've already argued with several people about when the Referendum 1 thing was going on, and we already know that I think turning education into a market system is a craptastic idea, so let's not even go there, because no matter how stirring your arguments are about competition and quality, I will never, never agree with you where education is concerned. I promise.) I think part of this (the reason we decided it's a right, in case you forgot because my tangent was so long) has to do with the fact that we think all kids should have something close to an equal opportunity for success, especially because they have no control over the circumstances into which they are born, and the only way we can try to soften the giant gap between people is to make sure that everyone has a chance to learn how to read and so forth. Isn't that at least part of the whole belief that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right? But what about life being one of those? Where does someone like James fit into all of these arguments about "why should I pay for your health care" when he'd be delighted to pay for his own if anyone would give him the opportunity? How do you reconcile the fact that we want our health care to be high quality with competitive rates with the fact that James needs health care and can't get it? Is it a right or a privilege?

I'd really like your thoughts on this, because it's something I just can't wrap my head around, and I don't know enough about it (as I'm sure many of you will be able to see from the fallacies that undoubtedly dot this post). The only solutions I can think of have something to do with Zion and aren't incredibly helpful right now.

Home again, home again.

Today I officially sold my spring/summer contract, which means I will be moving home at the end of this month. I've been thinking about this for awhile, and it makes a lot of sense to not work all summer and then dump half of it into rent when I can work all summer and not pay rent (and make my mom happy, because if I'm leaving at the end of the summer, storing up the time with her will be a good thing). They're giving me back my job at the Wight House reception center, so that means I'm now fast approaching a summer full of wedding receptions and birthday parties rather than a summer of painting estimates.
I have mixed feelings about this. I haven't been home for the whole summer since summer of '05, when I was still working my high school job. (Actually, I probably could have pulled some strings to get that job back too, but I just couldn't handle it. Everyone goes back to Cutler's, and I already did it once.) I like the idea of getting away from Provo, spending some time with the parents, weaning myself off my Hulu addiction (unless the parents finally spring for high speed internet, which I'm pushing heavily), not spending all summer working at 6 am every day. (The nice thing about the Wight House is that some days are really light - a couple of hours and you're good. Other days are 11 hours, but they're usually entertaining and involve many stressed-out brides and 80s revival bands.)
On the other hand, I will miss my current job (or at least my coworkers) and I hate leaving a job after so little time working there. I can almost guarantee a fairly minimal social life at home (especially because I'll have a crazy and unpredictable schedule involving late nights) and I'll miss my roommates, even though I plan to come and visit them often. I'll even miss my room here a little, although I am looking forward to being able to read in the bathtub again (this bathtub ended up being disappointing in the extreme, because I couldn't fill it up without using all of the hot water. And also it was disgusting.)
I'm hoping that the lack of social life will stave off the dating lectures, and I'm hoping I won't build off my parents' stress about the grad school money thing and can just figure it all out. (It's weird, because I'm super stressed about the money thing, but I can't get myself going on the solution thing except for ceasing to spend money wherever possible. Although that probably won't stop me from going to the Keane concert with Erin. Anyway.) I really don't know what's going to happen this fall, which is a whole different kettle of fish, and it makes me sick thinking about it - the debt if I do, the lack of direction if I don't, etc. I'm just going to keep heading in the going direction and see what presents itself.

On unrelated notes: 1) A couple of weeks ago, I watched Supersize Me on Hulu, and I immediately stopped going out to eat every day for lunch. I now take sandwiches or bagels or wraps, and then I go for a walk when I finish eating/reading whatever chapter I'm on. I'm not missing spending the money on burgers, nor do I miss the burgers themselves. (I do miss the milkshakes though. Oh, how I love milkshakes.)  2) I've been watching some Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu (okay, remember what I said about it being an addiction?) and I feel a little embarrassed about that, except that I kind of love it. I'm grateful that Lindsey is justifying me on this, because love of Joss Whedon aside, the monsters are silly-looking and I haven't ever been a big fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar . . . and yet still I'm hooked. It's probably the vampire-fighting librarian that's keeping me going. :) In my defense, I've also been watching a little Arrested Development, and it's also pretty awesome. (Jason Bateman, I love you. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I thought you should know.)

Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth

 Giles, my new favorite librarian-type fictional character

Lastly, the other day I called a customer and got the following answering machine: "I hope you know that you have the power to make this a great day. You've reached Olivia . . ." Yeah. Amazing. 

I want in on the action.

Katherine has been posting poems every day for National Poetry Month, and even Clark posted something on the Review Fuse blog for it, and I kind of want in. I don't expect most of you to watch these, but I'm posting them anyway for the two of you who will. The first two are the wonderful Billy Collins (probably my favorite living poet, and also, I think I I've posted at least one of them before, in text form) and the last is a ridiculous video of T.S. Eliot reading his own "Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock." As if his reading wasn't ridiculous enough, they had to make that animation. But still, I love the poem, and his British accent (he was born in Missouri and went expatriot) and the fact that it reminds me of the time Katherine and I talked about making a poem video of it (like a music video) with a patient on a table and women coming and going talking of Michaelangelo someone wearing the bottoms of his trousers rolled. Amazing. Anyway, enjoy, and I hope to post a few more poetry-related things before the month is over.

Massive catch up post (or ketchup post. Either one.)

Okay, it's time to stop the non-posting madness.

The last day in Ann Arbor was great - I spent lots of time in the amazing used book stores around the city, which meant that I ended up with a really stiff neck when I ran around the airport the next day, because there were an extra 6 books in my bag. I thought I exercising great self-control. (And just to let you know how long I've really been home without posting - I've already finished two of the books I bought, and I'm starting on third. Awesome.)

Here are some pictures, as promised. 

Katherine and me at the Toronto Cenotaph

The best name for any muffin place ever, and it was right across from our hotel.

A very cool war memorial.

Us at the Toronto Times Square equivalent. 

Kjerstin by the mushroom house. 

A cool vine-covered building at the university in Toronto.

The amazing High Fidelity-style record store in Ann Arbor, which had at least 3 dogs wandering around in it. 

A nifty mural on the place where I had lunch - it used to be a bookstore. 

The courtyard of the law buildings on the University of Michigan's campus

After I got home, I had a little freak out session about money, and I emailed Drew's girlfriend, who is a student in Bloomington. She gave me some really good info about that campus and area, and even a lead on a possible roommate/apartment situation. This all made me feel better, because at least I feel like I do have two good options, even if I end up feeling like I have to go with IU for financial reasons. We'll see how it goes.

Nothing much exciting happened after that except the Festival of Colors, which was lovely. I think I've finally stopped blowing my nose and coming out purple now. 


Also, Miri came to visit us on Sunday because she was in town for Mike's sister's wedding, and we had a good (if too short) chat with her.

On Monday, I was driving to work in some light snow that didn't seem to be making the roads too bad, but there were some patches that were a little slushy on the freeway, and on one of these the car in front of me slowed down a little more quickly than I expected. I put on my brake and started spinning out, and instead of getting control over my car, I ended up doing a 180 on the freeway and slamming into the retaining wall at about 55 mph. I was really happy about the 6 am thing meaning that there weren't too many people on the road, because that meant no one hit me and I didn't hit anyone else. Anyway, once I was stopped by the wall, I pulled back onto the road and decided that since Stella seemed to be doing okay, I'd just go and take care of things from the warmth of the Five Star building rather than on the side of the road or off the next exit.
I got really lucky and am feeling incredibly blessed about the whole thing, because I slammed into that wall pretty hard, but only my bumper has any damage (i.e. one section is just gone now) which means I can just replace the whole bumper (my dad found someone who has some for my car for $200 - we'll just need to have it painted and installed, which won't be too horrible.) My trunk, side panels, tail lights (and also, you know, bones) are all completely fine. It was terrifying, but it could have been much worse. My parents drove down that night to give me a hug and bring me thin mints and look at the car, and Dad said he didn't know how I could have done less damage in that kind of accident.

Some other successes, discoveries, happenings in bullet point form:

• I've started subscribing to some podcasts, and am particularly enjoying the New Yorker's short story podcast where authors read stories by other authors and then talk about them, as well as Stephen Fry's hilariously British podgrams. I've got a few NPR podcasts as well - This I Believe, Science Friday, All Songs Considered, and I have a BBC Global News one (which I was listening to when I crashed, actually.) It's kind of fun, especially when work gets really boring and I want to feel like I'm learning something while I do really repetitive tasks. If any of you have good recommendations, please pass them along. (Thanks to those of you who already have.)
• I discovered while I was visiting Katherine that I secretly love Hummus, that snootiest of snooty spreads that you can still get at Macey's for under $5. I bought some the other day and wanted some pita chips, but alas, there were none, so instead I bought regular pitas, and then, at Amanda's suggestion, turned them into my own pita chips. I put a little vegetable oil on a cookie sheet and drizzled just a little over the top of some sliced up pita pieces, and then I put a little salt on them and baked them for about 5 minutes at 350, and they are glorious. Seriously. I'm going to have to buy more of both soon, becaue my roommates are fans too.
• Whitney and I went to the library the other night to get a movie that we're going to be missing at IC the other night, but amazingly, someone checked it out between my looking it up online and us driving there. (Really? It was a movie about female circumcision in Africa. How is there a demand for that?) Instead we picked up the new Masterpiece Theater version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and we're LOVING it. We've been watching it one episode at a time because we both have to get up early and we have incredible self- restraint, but seriously, I don't know how you could make a more perfect movie of that book. Tess even looks right to me, and Alec is sufficiently charming and scummy, and Angel is kind of goofy-sweet and likable (although I'm dreading the next episode) and it's just great. Also, we rented this excellent German film called The Tunnel, which we watched at Mushie night last night. It's about some people escaping from the GDR in the sixties, and it was fabulous.
• We found our skirts/shirts for Amanda's wedding!

Okay. I think that catches everyone up for now. I'll post pictures later.