Where Soul Meets Body . . .

Which is, of course, wherever Carrie is.
Okay, before I get into this, I think I need to clarify: I am not, in fact, obsessed with the Twilight books. True, there were a few weeks right after I read them when I was a little more than excited about them (okay, I was kind of obsessed), and true, I did mastermind a roommate road trip to Phoenix to go to the Eclipse Prom, but it is not an obsession (now). I am obsessed with many things: Shakespeare, music, England . . . but not with vampires. All of those things were merely enjoyable diversions, a means of enjoying the company of friends and sharing the joys of a very compelling story.
That said, I have to tell you about my trip to see Carrie, which included a trip to Forks.
I decided back in May that I needed a trip this summer, something that included me flying alone. I started listening to the Augustana song "Coffee and Cigarettes" a lot, because I loved the line, "Put me on a plane, fly me to anywhere." I don't know if you have experienced that restless feeling that can only be satisfied by doing something that makes you feel independent and capable, but that was what I felt, and since I wanted to see Carrie before she took off on her mission, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I loved sitting in the airport last Tuesday night. There was one moment, when I was reading my postmodern novel and listening to Nirvana ("Heart-Shaped Box," the only song of theirs I know - because of Guitar Hero), that completely filled that need. So perfect.
Carrie and I had a blast. As soon as have access to faster internet I'll post some pictures, but we spent an afternoon playing in Seattle that only pictures can explain, and then we took a little jaunt up to the sight of our favorite vampire novel with Carrie's mom and sister. The trip was planned back when all of the Vail women finished the first two books, but when they found out I was coming, they waited for me. (After all, I did recommend them.)
It was cloudy and drizzly when we hit Forks, which was perfect. The town is even tinier than I imagined it would be, and everything looked like it needed a new coat of paint. We drove through Port Angeles on the way there and on the way back, and I must say it looked much more impressive after our day in little Forks.
Our first stop was to the rest stop/ visitor info place, where we found and incredible book called Who Pooped in the Park? A Kids Guide to Scat and Tracks. I wish I could convey to you how amazing this book was, with its picture of poop on the cover and its poop identification table in the back ("small and round," "runny and lighter in color," "contains bits of fur and bones"). It was about a little boy whose family was camping in the Olympics and who was afraid that he was going to be eaten by a bear. His father explains that they can enjoy animals without getting close to them, without even seeing them! All they have to do is look at their tracks and their "scat," and the animals' story is revealed! The little boy accepts this as the eternal truth it is with the immortal line,"We don't have to have close encounters of the scary kind; we can have close encounters of the poopy kind!" At the end of the day, his older sister says, "We didn't see any animals, but it felt like we did!"
How can the day get better after this, you ask? Just wait.
So the day before we went to Forks, Carrie and I bought four sets of plastic vampire teeth from Party City, and wow. The photo opportunities came and just didn't stop coming. We took pictures in front of Forks City Hall (home of the police force and therefore Charlie Swan, Bella's dad), in front of Forks Community Hospital (where Bella is treated for her many injuries and where Carlisle Cullen works) Forks High School, and in front of the Forks LDS chapel, which is never mentioned in the books even though Stephenie Meyer is LDS. It was a lovely time full of giggling and umbrellas and muddy feet. The highlight of Forks itself came on the way out, when we stopped to take a picture in front of the Welcome to Forks sign. We climbed up to the sign (easier said than done in wet flip flops) and kissed it, but on our way down we noticed that the motorcyclists who's been stopped just up the road from the sign were still there...waiting for us to get down.
Turns out that one of the tough motorcycle men was also a dad, and his 14-year old daughter just read the books and asked her dad to take a picture of the Forks sign. :)
From Forks we drove to the Quileute reservation at La Push, where we visited werewolf country. The cool thing about La Push was that it was actually a gorgeous spot all on its own. The actual town part was a lot like Forks - a little run down and small - but the beach was absolutely beautiful, and we got to walk through the rain forest to get to it! We walked along the beach and looked at the beautiful cliffs out in the ocean and saw crab shells and popped seaweed bubbles and it was amazing.
Friday was super chill - we lazed around all morning and then got beautiful so we could go to Landon and Dustin's reception in Portland. It was a nice drive with good conversation and good music, and we enjoyed seeing our friends in tuxes and pretty dresses. Landon was beautiful in her wedding dress, and they both looked so happy that I hardly minded being forced to try to catch the bouquet. (This is a rant for another time, but I have severe issues with being forced to stand with all of the other single girls so that I can show how desperate I am by how hard I work at catching a bunch of flowers. It's just me folks - sorry.)
Overall it was an absolutely perfect trip, and I'm so glad I went to spend time with dear Carrie, without whose support I would have had a much harder time getting through last year. So you see, it wasn't ALL about vampires. :)
For those of you that have facebook, all of the pictures are available in an album called BEACH LOGS KILL!!! But here are some.

Blow Winds, and Crack Thy Cheeks!!

So The Fray concert was amazing. I'm pretty sure they did all of their songs and then some, and I'm looking forward to their next album. The highlights of the show were, for me, the cover of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" - if you don't think that song is hilarious when sung by a group of men you have no sense of humor - and the final encore number, "Look After You." At the end of the song they broke into Oasis - "Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me.. and after all, you're my Wonderwall..." Amazing. It went so perfectly with the song and I love "Look After You" anyway. Additionally, the band was true to the front they present on their CD. They're uplifting and clean in they're songs, and they were the same way in concert, which seems to be rare in the concert world and was very appreciated.

I spent the rest of this week in beautiful Cedar City, where I finally got to add King Lear to my list of Shakespeare plays I've seen in person. The rain stopped long enough for the production to start outside, but we got to watch most of the play through a drizzle, which was actually a lot of fun for that particular play. I was never quite sure whether the thunder I was hearing was real or coming out of the speakers. Twelfth Night was also fun, as always, and I enjoyed the other plays we saw. We avoided Coriolanus, partially because I didn't think the parentals would enjoy it, and partially because I'm afraid no one will every measure up to Jonathan Cake as dear Caius Marcius. Sigh...
One of the highlights of the festival was finding a Shakespeare bobble head in the gift shop, which I bought to put on my future teacher desk. Pictures to follow. The other was putting the hurt to the candy seller I call "Lonely Hand Man." When I graduated from high school, my friends and I went down to the festival to see all of the plays, and there was this obnoxious candy seller who guilted my friend Hollie into buying chocolate from him every night. He made such a nuisance of himself that she'd buy it just to make him go away. One night, he asked her out on a date because she had a beautiful smile. It was beyond ludicrous, but became more so when she said yes. While they were walking around the festival grounds, legend has it he told her that his hand was lonely, and she held it for him. Really. When my friend Mariann heard about it, she said, "I would have told him that's why he has two!!" So on the night we went to see Twelfth Night, my parents went to the orientation and I went out on the green to save a spot. (Two live productions and a movie later, I feel pretty confident in my grasp of that particular plot.) Lonely Hand Man sits down next to me, and in his fake Irish accent he says, "What's a beautiful lass like yourself doing sitting all alone?" Okay, first, it's a mistake to interrupt me while I'm reading when you're a complete/unwelcome stranger and you want to sell me something. Second, I had a score to settle with him. I told him I was waiting for my family and he said, "Well, would you like to buy something that might be almost as sweet as you are?" Ugh. "No, thanks. I'm fine." He put on a very unconvincing puppy dog face, "You're breaking my heart!"
"Well," I said, finally looking up from my book, "that's what I do."
"Nobody likes me," he whimpered. I ignored him and let him crawl away. He really needs to learn that not everyone goes for empty flattery delivered in a cheesy accent. I was doing him a favor.

Finally, I remembered my favorite romantic Shakespeare line when I was looking through the merchandise down there. From Much Ado About Nothing: "I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?" I think I love this line so much because I can hear Kenneth Branagh's Benedick saying it, but it's certainly a good one, cheesy as it is. If I were to put a cheesy quote on my wedding invitation, that would definitely be in the running (more so than the ones that repeatedly show up on the wedding announcements showing up on my fridge every five minutes.) I think I could do cheesy a little better if it were Shakespeare (or a lyric to a really awesome song, but we won't get ahead of ourselves here.)

We May Be Some Sorta Crazy: The Adventures of Team Estrogen in Tempe

Well, we did it. We drove to Arizona for a glorified book signing, and we made it back - alive and with our dignity mostly intact.
The trip was absolutely amazing. We drove down through rain and snow and dark of night right (listening to the Twilight and Eclipse playlists, naturally) after I got out of class on Friday, and on Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go kayaking with our dear friend Chelsea Walker, who inadvertently gave us the name for our expedition. There was a sticky note in her car that said "teamestrogen.com" at the bottom... well, we were there because we were in love with a fictional vampire, so it seemed to fit.
After a stop at In-N-Out for lunch and a few minutes at the Mesa temple, we went back to our hotel for some major primping. I did almost nothing toward getting myself ready - Jennie curled my hair, Lili put my hair up, and Lauren did my makeup. I read The English Patient throughout the process in a futile attempt to not get any further behind in my school work.
We were all feeling a little silly when we went to the prom, but we pulled up and saw several middle-aged ladies in frilly dresses and we started to feel better. Then we found out that there were girls there from Canada and Los Angeles, New York and even London - well, driving down from Provo didn't seem like much of a stretch.
Stephenie Meyer was there and read the first chapter of Eclipse to us (it was hard to hear, but luckily we also got a couple of copies of the special edition of New Moon, so at dinner afterwards we read it to each other.) Stephenie told us that she realized that most of us had come to the prom stag, so she brought some options for us for prom pictures. Then she proceeded to introduce us to Edward and Jacob. Amazing. The actors couldn't quite live up to our expectations of course, but it was definitely enough to get all of those girls squealing.
There was supposed to be dancing at the prom, and there was music - everything from Muse to Crowded House to the Beach Boys - but there was no dancing. So we danced anyway and had a blast, and I'm pretty sure everyone else wished they could be as cool as we were.
The drive home was beautiful - we could see so much more of the gorgeous desert in the light (haha) and we stopped at Glen Canyon Dam to take some dam pictures.
We got home in time for ward prayer and got all kinds of crap for what our guy friends perceive as our "problem" (several offers were made for aid in forming a self-help group) but we didn't care. We knew it was geeky, but it was also fantastically fun, and why would we miss out on something so amazing just because we get funny looks when we say we drove 10 hours to get to a book signing?
This is one for the record books.
For your view pleasure, a few pictures from our expedition:

Trying to entertain ourselves in the car for several hours was a hard job

Well, they didn't want their noses to get sunburned on the river...

In-N-Out = amazing, and so does Chelsea for carting us around Gilbert and Mesa

This is scary business. Ah, the price of beauty.

But wasn't it worth it?

Getting my books signed by Stephenie Meyer!

Can't . . . wait . . . for August . . .

Yeah, everyone else wishes they were this cool.

Yay for the spinny dress!

Showing off our nail/making butterfly motions.

And we basically destroyed our room.

I saw this street on the way to the prom . . . we couldn't resist the photo op.

A dam picture. It was really hard to smile for this because we were looking right into the dam sun.

There are SO many more amazing pictures, but this gives you a pretty good overall view of our trip. Sadly, I don't have one of me falling into the Salt River, but I'm sure what you can imagine is better.
We may be some sort of crazy (thanks Blue October) . . . but I like us.

Phoenix, Here We Come!

Well, we had a moment of panic earlier this week when we found out that the Eclipse Prom sold out in about six hours, but they decided to hold two, and we got our name on the waiting list immediately. Jennie just got the tickets, so never fear! We are on our way to Tempe one month from today for a weekend of fan-girlie glory and frills.
(If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, don't worry. You probably don't want to know.)