Blarf

I was going to write a story about Sir Lord Blarf Borkenstein, but unfortunately couldn't come up with a plot for the story. Marvelous character description, and I suppose I could have written about how he was knighted for doing a favor for King Muffy (who happens to a dog, and not just any dog, but a poodle terrier), but I didn't. Maybe later. If you bug me enough about it.

A guy from my church says that if I can't get back into BYU this fall, I should go back to Utah and take online courses. I asked why I couldn't just take the online courses from here and he replied, "You need to get back into LDS society. It'll do you good."

Um. No. Why on Earth do you think I'm up here?

Oh well. I thought it was funny. I have an appointment with the bishop tomorrow and will set one up with the stake president as soon as possible--probably Wednesday. Yes, I did put it off this long, because I was toying with the idea of transferring to UAF instead. Actually, I'm once again juggling every option I can possibly think of. I know if I go back to BYU, I'll get my degree and probably end up going somewhere and immediately starting an editing job, which will severely limit everything else I wanted to: give tours at the Grand Canyon, be a deckhand on a boat, get a black belt in karate, get a dog sled team, study astronomy, learn carpentry, and a million and one other things. Of course, whatever I do, it'll probably end up limiting my options. So back to BYU is what I'm shooting for now. If that doesn't work, I'll try for UAF. If I don't get in, then it's back to the drawing board.

I guess my problem is, I want to do nearly everything in the world, but there's not time, so I'm forced to choose. Pretty much whatever I do is going to take several years, and unfortunately, I don't get to live forever. Also unfortunately, anywhere I go, there will be people insisting I need to settle down, get a desk job, go to church, get married, and then quit my desk job to pop out babies, as if success in life is dependent on how many kids you have. I'm not bashing people with families, honest! I have a lot of respect for people with the patience to have a family. What bothers me is when people have an attitude of "This lifestyle works for me and therefore you can't really be happy unless your lifestyle is like it." Personally, I have trouble even putting up with myself at times--what makes people think I could put up with a husband, much less hyperactive, shrieking, messy children? Don't get me wrong, I love spoiling other people's kids... for a few hours at a time. But I like my quiet time to read books or play games or write or draw or play the piano or solve puzzles and riddles or even to just sit and think. When you have kids, it seems like your life has to revolve around them... and there's too much else I want to do first. I'm only twenty--being tied down to a family can wait.

Okay, I'm done with that rant.

Ha, Rye and I went up to Anchorage last Wednesday. It was kind of funny, because we both needed new pants. So we went to Wal-mart, went straight to the cargo pants, grabbed two pairs of pants, looked at each other, said "You done?" "Yep. You?" "Yep," and left. No listening to people wailing about how Wal-mart clothes aren't fashionable and are low-quality and any sane person only buys clothes from Gap or American Eagle or whatever, no going through every freaking item on every freaking clothes rack, no listening to people tell me how I should or shouldn't dress, and best of all, not once did I have to hear the word "cute."

Clothes-shopping with most girls is possibly the funniest thing in the whole world, if not the most annoying. First you have to put up with listening to Girl verbally debate with herself which clothing stores to go to first. Then Girl drags you into about twenty different stores and goes through every item on every rack and pulls out six or seven things from each rack and squeals about how "cute" or "adorable" it is. Then she insists you try on about a dozen various clothing items, despite your protests that they're not your style and not even close to your size. She'll insist you model every single item to make sure you actually do put the hideous articles on, and if you're really unlucky, she'll find one she thinks fits you and will badger you incessantly to buy it "just in case" because it's "so adorable" until you finally spend the ridiculous amounts of money just to get her to shut up. (That, of course, is a mistake, because then she'll badger you to wear it later, unless you're lucky enough that she completely forgets about it. You have about a fifty-fifty chance.) After four to six hours of clothes-shopping, if you were lucky, you have about five or six new clothing items, none of which you particularly like (some of which you particularly hate), and two weeks later, after hiding the junk Girl made you buy, you realize you still have no clothes and need to go clothes-shopping again.

Anyway, I've made you read enough for today, I suppose. And I have ten new books to read since our Anchorage trip, and I've barely started the first one. Well, okay, I'm two-hundred pages into it, but the plot hasn't even started yet because so far it's mostly just background info about religion and politics. I don't think I like the Dragonbone Chair series as much as I had anticipated. Rye promises it'll get better further in, though, so I haven't put it down just yet.

Toodles!