Woohoo! Tomorrow I leave for California... knows how to party! It makes me feel all happy inside. One because I'll be with two of my very best friends. Two because I'll be visiting Heather who I miss on ridiculous levels. Three because there's a chance for sun, beaches and Mickey Mouse. Four because I'm getting away from Provo. And Five because it'll be a great distraction from myself and my thoughts. Yes, yes. Road trips are good and good for you.

The Color Code:
I AM...
22 Blue
19 White
3 Yellow
1 Red
What does it mean? I don't know. I'd like to think it means that I'm a good person who cares about people. But it could mean that I'm short, stubborn and confused. It could mean anything. Or nothing. Or something inbetween. I give up. The colors are pretty though, huh?

Or not... I guess my appointment was for yesterday. I showed up to the doctor's and it turns out I wrote it down wrong. And since my folks' said I could only go if I went in June and I leave tomorrow for the remainder of the month... it's a no go. I can live with that.

Well, today I face the "Big Bad" alone. Today I must visit a doctor. I've had an ear ache for well over a month now. I finally broke down and made an appointment last week and the earliest they could get me in was today. So, I've had a full week to dread the appointment. I almost cancelled several times. I mean, my ear doesn't hurt that bad. It's not a big deal really. Why go to a doctor? But then I talked myself out of it by reminding myself that since it's been bothering me for over a month, it's probably not going to go away on its own and also my roommates would kill me, or worse, make fun of me for as long as I live. So, I'm going. Man, I hate doctors. Who's treating me to ice cream afterwards?

I recently gave an Enrichment lesson on the importance of journaling. I found an old journal-type thing of mine today. I wasn't impressed. I guess I did it wrong. Or lived wrong. Or something...

But that's not all. No, no.
--Talked to Heather online.
--Realized my hair dye was in longer than needed.
--Showered.
--Ran upstairs to use a hair dryer.
--Called Heather.
--Called Heather.
--Called Heather.
--Went next door to argue with David. Took phone with me.
--Phone rang. Yay!
--Talked to Lisa.
--Called Heather.
--Called Heather.
--Heather??
I think I'm the annoying kid. Even my out of state friends are avoiding me. Back to Harry Potter?

And then?
--Visited a friend. Shot down.
--Got my body pillow, my comforter, Ghirardelli squares and a water bottle. Curled up and read.
--Went to softball practice. Got blisters from the bat. But had a heck of a good time!
--Went grocery shopping. Bought junk food. And hot dogs. I don't like hot dogs. I ate two.
--Channel surfed for anything good. Nothing good. Went back to reading.
--Four knocks on the wall... heading over to 64...already seen Sweet Home Alabama... head back home for a bit.
--Remembered I bought hair dye. Dyed my hair.
I'll bet you're on the edge of your seat wondering what color, aren't you?

My day alone continues...
--Drove Liz to campus.
--Ate a sandwich.
--Vacuumed.
--Talked to Katie about missions and VTing.
--Went to see "Down With Love" at the dollar. One of the worst movies I've ever seen. A waste of 50 cents.
--Read.
Wow, I'm an interesting character. I should have my own website.

So... I'm alone. The roommate is gone until Thursday night or Friday morning. In either case, I have a few days. My experience as a loner so far goes as follows...
--Went to visit a friend. Denied.
--Read Harry Potter until I could no longer make out the words.
--Fell asleep and had a horrible nightmare where my worst fear came into vivid display.
--Woke up in a panic to my alarm clock singing the Winnie the Pooh theme song.
--Turned off alarm, instantly fell asleep again.
--Unwillingly returned to nightmare, woke up in a panic a half hour later.
--Read a chapter of Harry Potter.
--Read Blogs.
--Chatted with Jena, Ryan and Steve online.
--Made plans to see a movie at the dollar.
--Did a few sit-ups, called it a workout and moved on.
--Ran to the post office and mailed stuff to Lisa and my parents.
--Went to the library and got a library card and borrowed the sequel to the last book I read.
--Came home to clean.
--Some how got in a conversation about AirWave Pans.
--Got out of it and ran home.
--Watched Mad About You and decided I should eat.
--Realized I missed the movie. Making plans to see it at 2pm.
My gosh, it's only 12:30. My life's a lot more entertaining when Kat's here to make fun of it. Where are my friends? Where??

Sing it Tracy Chapman...

Done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right
Oh I, Oh I've
Done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right
At this point in my life
I've done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right
If you put your trust in me I hope I won't let you down
If you give me a chance I'll try
You see it's been a hard road the road I'm traveling on
And if I take your hand I might lead you down the path to ruin
I've had a hard life I'm just saying it so you'll understand
That right now, right now, I'm doing the best I can

At this point in my life
At this point in my life
Although I've mostly walked in the shadows
I'm still searching for the light
Won't you put your faith in me
We both know that's what matters
If you give me a chance I'll try

You see I've been climbing stairs but mostly stumbling down
I've been reaching high always losing ground
You see I've been reaching high but always losing ground
You see I've conquered hills but I still have mountains to climb
And right now right now I'm doing the best I can
At this point in my life

Before we take a step
Before we walk down that path
Before I make any promises
Before you have regrets
Before we talk commitment
Let me tell you of my past
All I've seen and all I've done
The things I'd like to forget

At this point in my life
At this point in my life
I'd like to live as if only love mattered
As if redemption was in sight
As if the search to live honestly
Is all that anyone needs
No matter if you find it

You see when I've touched the sky
The earth's gravity has pulled me down
But now I've reconciled that in this world
Birds and angels get the wings to fly
If you can believe in this heart of mine
If you can give it a try
Then I'll reach inside and find and give you
All the sweetness that I have
At this point in my life
At this point in my life

I'm a pansy. A huge pansy. I know that even as I say this, you're not comprehending exactly how much of a pansy I am. I'm talking huge. I'm a huge pansy. Get it? Let me give you some examples of my state of pansiness...

1 - I sat in Kat's lap in the fetal position while watching Signs and still hid my eyes more than she said I had to.
2 - I had a nightmare and although I'm 22 now, I woke up screaming for help. "Liz!! Liz?? Kat!!! Kat???"
3 - The second Harry Potter was on at a neighbors. "Oh, I've never seen this one because I'm scared of the spider part."
"Oh, you mean this part?" A few HUGE spider legs creep into the scene.
"Oh, gosh! I have to go. I love you guys but I have to go!!" I bolted! I could hear them giggling at me as I left but still I bolted down the stairs as fast as possible.
4 - I saw a spider. Kat tried to push me towards it to make me kill it. I screamed. I screamed a lot. I screamed for David until he came and took care of it.
5 - Dad asked about my driving record and asked if it was still good. I still haven't told him about the ticket I got last summer. I said, "Uh huh." One ticket doesn't make my record bad. Technically, it wasn't a lie.
6 - Jaws left me afraid to walk from the pool to my apartment alone in the dark.

So there you have it. Just a few examples of Em being a pansy in the last week.

I have great memories of traveling from our home in Renton to Seattle 3 or 4 times a week as a young 6-10 year old. It's not a long trip, but it was a great and exciting trip for a young kid. We have to go over several bridges, including the floating bridge. That equalled a good time because we would pretend that we were paddling in a kayak or some other boat, or that we were swimming ridiculously fast. Wayne would peal into laughter as I'd pretend that a huge octopus had grabbed my leg or that a fish had bit my toe.

But the tunnels... the tunnels were where the real fun went on. At first I taught him the "hold your breath through the tunnel" rule. We had a great time watching our faces turn all different shades red, until my mom caught on to our game as well and would slow down as much as possible and have a little fun of her own. So we made up some new games. I would pretend that whenever we went into a tunnel we were in warp speed and we'd both throw ourselves back against the seat and try our best to make our faces look like they were being pulled back also. Then sometimes we'd combine the two and hold our breath as we were "speeding" through the tunnel. Wayne usually won because he'd make such funny "speeding" faces that I'd laugh and lose.

Tunnel games... good times.

The other night I had a dream inside of a dream. It was awesome! As Jack Handey said, "If you find yourself watching a play within a play, just sit back because you're in for the ride of your life!" And that it was. I'm pretty sure that my mind creating a dream inside of a dream is another piece of evidence proving that I'm a genius. Yes. It's all so clear to me.

And also, both times I "woke up"... I woke up flailing and yelling for my roommates. Am I six?

A six-year-old GENIUS!!!

Man, I hate being the mean kid. I'm not allowed to say I'm the short, fat kid any more. But now I've adopted this mean kid thing. I'd rather be the short, fat kid. Can I go back to that? Please? The dumb kid? I just don't want to be the mean kid. No more mean kid. I'm sorry I'm the mean kid. Sorry. Really sorry. Really. Really real. Real. Real. Real. Really. Really real. Real.

My Liz is a stats genius. This one's for you.

Tonight Kat and I went for a Taco Bell run. The drive-thru guy gave us a free 32 oz. Mountain Dew and a free Enchilada Bowl. This all goes to prove my stick shift story point again. If you want something bad enough and your heart is pure... wonderful things can happen!!! Obviously!

I love my new body pillow! It's true! I'm now in Sandman heaven. (Okay, who's this Sandman guy? Be silly, Silly Man!) It's so comfortable and makes bed time so wonderful that I thought for sure no nightmare could penetrate the happiness of "The Body Pillow". And for the first couple of nights, I was right. But, it turns out I was only half right. The nightmares came last night but this time (and I give my body pillow full credit) my best friends were there with me. So, really... the nightmare wasn't that bad. I didn't wake up in a panic. I was actually kind of laughing about it. Hehehe... I've got a magic body pillow! What've you got??

Muahahaha!

Just so you know...I'M A GENIUS!
Well... maybe not... but the miracle that was performed today made me look like I was a genius.
This morning at 6:45 I met Micah and Vance to head up to the airport. We picked up Rich, Micah's friend and soon to be roommate, on the way and the four of us started up the freeway to the airport. We drove Micah's car because his company gave him money for gas and he felt bad making me take my car. So Micah drove his car up with the intention that I'd drive it back. We got almost halfway to Salt Lake when I looked down and realized, "Hey! This car's a stick! I don't know how to drive a stick!"
I panicked. What do I do? What do I do? Maybe I won't bring it up and I'll be able to drive it to a parking lot and call for help. Who do I know that drives stick? Liz? No, she only has one leg. Kat? Her car's an automatic but maybe she can drive stick... hmmm. No, I should tell Micah I don't know how. Because if I crash it, I'm going to feel really bad. Ow... that would hurt, too! D'oh!
"Uh... Micah?"
"Ya?"
"I know this isn't good timing... but... I don't know how to drive stick."
"What? You don't?"
Chuckling comes from the back seat. Vance and Rich are having a great time with this one.
"Ya, Micah. I'm sorry. I just looked down now and realized the problem."
"Uh... it's okay. No, it really is. We have an extra hour because Vance's flight leaves so early. So, Rich and I will drive around the airport with you and teach you how to drive stick.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
So we dropped off Vance and Micah taught me how to use the clutch and how to "shift down" and stuff like that. We drove around the airport loop 5 or 6 times and then it was time to drop of Micah and Rich. Oh dear. But do you know what? I drove all the way home and only killed the car once. (And that was on Freedom, one block from home.) But I drove on the freeway, got through an after-accident traffic jam, got through Downtown Provo (with four red lights) and made it safely into the Villa parking lot.
I was so excited that the first thing I did was call Liz to tell her what I genius I was. Her first response was, "Man, Em. You get weirder and weirder every day." But I still think that if you want something bad enough and your heart is pure wonderful things can happen!! This is all I'm saying...

When somebody gets all huffy because you haven't written or called in a while. And then calls and expresses concern that they think you're not okay. But doesn't want to talk about it then and promises to call you later that night. Or the next day. But then doesn't. Ever. What does that mean?

I pull one little stunt and suddenly I'm "listed" and then next thing I know I'm having to give a talk in sacrament meeting. It's been over three years since I've had to do that. I'm a little bit freaked out. It's funny because all growing up I was one of the very few youth who would give talks and I'd end up giving a talk in Sacrament once every other month or so, or the Bishop would always randomly call me up to share my testimony or give my thoughts on something. The ward loved to pick on me, to see me sweat a bit. But after a while, I really learned to love it. I looked forward to giving talks. Even my freshman year of college, when I was ridiculously intimidated by my peers, I was excited to give both talks that year. As of this coming August, I will have been in this ward for three years and this is the first time I've been asked to talk. Three years! Although I've given one or two talks back home during the summers, I'm wildly out of practice. And I'm pretty sure this experience could end up messy. Not only because I'm intimidated by who will be out there, or because I know everybody out there, or because I wasn't even that great of a speaker when I was doing it all the time... but because it's quite obvious that I don't know how to talk. I can give a 20 min talk in 5 min and when it's over people are crying... not because they were touched but because they were scared because I was speaking in tongues or something. Trust me. Who's going to hold the yellow card for me?? Any volunteers??