Dumb Things Guys Say

Hidden away in the back of our bookshelves is a little gem of a book called Dumb Things Guys Say. The authors were me and my room mates. Most of them read this blog, which is why I am posting the Top 10 Ten Dumb Things Guys Said to Us chosen by me, the keeper of the Dumb Things Guys Say book. We started it one particularly bitter night and continued to add to it over a span of a couple of years, basically until we all got married. We began it our sophomore year which was pretty much the worst year for most of us. After reading our entries again, I am reminded of some of the guys we had "encounters" with, for lack of a better all-encomposing word and I just shake my head in shame for us all. I have to admit though, most of the entries I don't remember which guy said what to which girl, as I've tried to erase larger parts of that year from my memory. Here are my favorite 10 that I picked out of the 123 entries. Actually, most of my real favorites aren't funny unless you're aware of the backstory so I didn't include those out of courtesy of those reading who didn't live in our apartment.

Top Ten Dumb Things Guys Said to Us
10. "You look terrible...I mean...tired."
9. "Don't you want to know your score?"
8. "You totally remind me of my ex. She was born in the 80's, too."
7. "Do you mind if I only walk you half way?"
6. "Your eyes are the same color as diarrhea."
5. "You're such a chick."
4. "I don't date girls from California. Don't let me kiss you."
3. "It doesn't matter. It's my Dad's money, anyway."
2. "I even talk to fat people."
1. "Hey Butt Hole! Sup?!!"

*NW6 girls - if you comment on this post, please refrain from using any "real" names because I might vomit if you do. Resort to any of their old nicknames if needs be: "Poison", "Charisma", "Polar Bear", "The Bearded Man", "80's-Soap-Opera-New-Zealand-Boy", "Stupid Face", "Lame Boy", etc. Actually, I can only remember who some of these names go to...I just wanted to post them because they were in the book and it made me laugh.

Today:

1. I forgot to wear green.

2. I played raquetball with Go. We did not keep score.

3. I ate some of Go's Crab Florentine Eggs and discovered I had definitely ordered the wrong thing.

4. In the car, I realized I had been singing the wrong lyrics to "What a Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers. I hate the song. Apparently I'm subconsciously racist because for all of these years I have been singing "a white man has the power" when it is really "no wise man has the power." I guess that's what you get for listening to classic rock radio. You're subjected to the Doobie Brothers.

5. My Mom called me to tell me that for the past 3 nights, she has had dreams about twins. "So be careful" she said. Uh, thanks Mom.

6. We returned a really lame movie to Blockbuster: "Mostly Martha." A couple different people had recommended it to me, probably because they knew I like foreign films. The movie had this constant saxophone playing in the background, it was killing me.

7. I went to Wal-Mart with the rest of the masses. It took me for-ev-er to get out of that place. I cannot wait until we can afford NOT to shop there.

8. I shoveled the driveway and walkway to our front door. The snow was fluffy and easy to push. I almost enjoyed it.

9. I watched a DVR'd Scrubs episode from Thursday and laughed my bottom off. There was a segment about stealing scrubs that was perfect. We have so many pairs of scrubs at our house, it's ridiculous.

10. I ate perogies for the first time. Unfortunately, I think I'm in love.

Young Mothers, Unite!

Seriously, what's better than this?

I am 26. I will be 27 in July. In today's society I'm considered pretty young to be married and to have 2 kids. Until just recently, every day when I'd wake up to one of my girl's voices, it would send a little surreal shock down my spine. In those first few hazy moments of the morning, I'd expect to open my eyes to my yellow bedroom back in Irvine and hear the crows cawing in the eucalyptus trees outside while I tumbled out of bed and made my way for the bathroom so I could brush my retainer. But in the past year or so, I've become used to the idea that I'm settled down, am married, have children. I'm a stay at home mom and have accepted this as my life, not that it was hard to accept or contrary to what I've always wanted and expected to happen but it's just taken some time. And I've realized that it's been moving to PA that has helped this along. Since moving here, I've had to defend myself and my age almost on a weekly basis. I have had comment after comment made to me about how I'm too young to be married and have two children. For example: a couple months back, I had just finished teaching a spin class and was sitting on a chair in the spin studio, taking off my cycle shoes when I was approached by four women in their 40's who had just taken my class, during which I mentioned something Ruby and May. You know, a little instructor banter. "We just have to ask", one of them said, her voice dripping with (insincere) apologies, "...how old are you?" I was a little taken aback. The women blinked and waited for my answer. I gave a little laugh and said "I'm 26." "And you have TWO children!" one of them said horrified, looking to the other women who mirrored her screwed up face. "Yes, " I replied still smiling, trying to be polite. "How old were you when you got MARRIED?" another asked. I told them and gave them my whole time line since they were so interested and they proceeded to shake their heads like it was the saddest thing they had ever heard and went on to say how they waited until after their careers to have children, that way they were more mature and ready to take on the responsibilities of motherhood and "isn't it just a shame today, these young mothers getting pregnant before they've really experienced what life has to offer." This bothered me. Excuse me, but I am experiencing what life has to offer. I'm raising children and since when did that lose importance? Since then, I have run into that scenario more often than I'd like but somehow it's made me more comfortable with my age and my situation, more firm in my convictions that what I'm doing is just as important as anything else, dare I say, more important. It's probably like what happened to me so many times in middle school and high school with constantly having to defend my religion - the more I did it, the more confident I was in defending it, being apart of it and letting it help shape my identity. So thanks rude ladies. Thank you for helping shape my identity of a young mother in today's sometimes disapproving society. And I just have to ask. How old are you?

I've been commissioned.

A friend I've made here (yes, I'm actually starting to make friends!) has commissioned me to paint a Pennsylvania landscape in oil paints. 24"x36". That's pretty big. I've never painted a landscape before. And I'm still not completely friends with oils so this will be challenging. Hope I don't blow it. I'm actually trying to paint one that I've pieced together from 3 different photographs, which I hope will not look as awkward as I'm predicting it might but I'm trying to have a little faith in myself. All I can do is try it, right?

Also, I am almost done with the "underwater" mural I've been painting on a friend of a friend's (yes, another friend!) 25 ft(?) basement wall. It hit me the other day: I'm actually making money as an artist. Wow, there's a dream come true. I will post pictures when the mural is finshed (it looking great) and post updates on the landscape.

Oh, Christian.

This is Christian Bale.

He was my first famous-guy-crush and consequentely the longest lasting. Yes, yes, I know he has been in some nasty gross movies but I didn't see them, so I can still like him, ok? Last night we saw "The Prestige." I highly recommend the movie, whether you're in love with Christian Bale or not. It was really, really good.

Pictures from yesterday

My camera dock was being dumb yesterday and wouldn't transfer these photos. Here are Ruby and May enjoying their new books that Princess Heather sent. Have I mentioned my girls are crazy?

Ode to Heather

This is my dear friend Heather. Or "Princess Heather" as Ruby calls her. She is one of the biggest reasons I have so many great memories from middle school and high school. She was usually the one to get our fun ideas off the ground and make them realities. She has always been the voice of reason, generous and caring. She has her priorities straight. She knows when to say things and when to hold her tongue. She has been there for me in times of need, sat me down to break unfortunate news, has organized trips to come and see me at college and PA, coming to my rescue during my hardest times. She is always willing to help in any way she can. She loves my kids and I love her for that.

We first became friends in 7th grade; we had the same TA (homeroom) and we are still close friends today.
Though I don't have any pictures from middle school, I have many pictures from high school and after that chronicles some of the fun times we've had together.

She always threw great birthday parties. One year it was on a boat sailing around Newport. We felt like rock stars.

Another year it was a bounce house in her front yard.

With a pinata in the back yard.

This is the peroxide she insisted she pour on my scraped leg that day. Don't remember how I did that--doing something stupid, no doubt.

She always added to the fun of high school.



She helped push my bus when I needed to jump start it...which was a lot.

We went to Palm Springs for our Senior trip - all planned and organized by Heather. I believe this picture was taken after I threw up. She was the one to hold my hair.

We would get together whenever we both came back from school for the summer.

She was the main push behind the trip she and 2 of my other good friends took to come and see me in Provo - a town she never, ever wanted to visit. We almost died that weekend. Seriously. I can't even think about it, it freaks me out...

She is always up for a good time.

She was there for my Bachelorette weekend...well for most of it anyway. :)

She was there long enough to buy me these red shoes as a wedding present. Don't you hate how Victoria Secret's dressing room doors lock you out?

She came out to see me in PA right after we moved here. She must have known that I needed a friend. And a babysitter for a night on the town with my husband. She learned how to give Ruby her shots and didn't even bat an eye.

She convinced her Aunt to sell my little purses in her boutique store. Bears, Buddies, and Toys! and even went out of her way to go pick one up for me, went to the post office, probably stood in line forever, just to mail it to me. She always goes above and beyond. She is getting married in a couple of months and someday will make an excellent mother. For the time being though, she'll just have to keep on spoiling my kids. :) This is Ruby and Heather at Bears, Buddies and Toys stuffing a bright pink poodle. Ruby got to pick it out. We came home from the store with our hands full of goodies from Heather: tiaras, fairy wands, etc.

And today for no reason at all we got books in the mail from her, which my girls have been looking at all afternoon. She understands my need for peace and quiet once in awhile.
How I love my friend Heather. I hope everyone has at least one friend in their life like her. Thanks for everything, G-Funk.

The Legend of Go

So this is Go. He is known as Brandon to most people, but not to me, his family, my family, people who have known him since he was a little boy or people who have been around his family quite a bit. When people learn of his name, which is really more than a nickname--his mother and I have encouraged him to legally it to "Go"but to no avail--they ask why. So here is the story. It's not very interesting but people always want to know, so here you go:


After his mom gave birth to him in the hospital, his dad took his two older brothers to go see the Disney classic "Pete's Dragon." Straight from the movie, they went to go see their mom and new baby brother. Still having images from "Pete's Dragon" fresh in their minds, they commented on how much he looked like one of the Gogans (being only 4 and 2 years old, they pronounced it as "Go-gums), the mean family from the movie. After that, he was never Brandon again, but "Gogums", which quickly got shortened to "Go", though his mother still calls him "Gogums" at times. So there's the story. Rivoting, wasn't it? He hates telling it; it's always a let down to the listener, he thinks.

The first time I really hung out with him, my room mate and I along with several other people, piled into a car in Provo to find a jacuzzi that was better than the cest pool they had at the Colony Apartments where we both lived. He was the last to get in. "Come on, Go, get in the car" his room mate said. The only place to sit was on my lap. Turning towards me, he said "I bet this is closer than you ever wanted to be to me." Little did he know that I had been keeping my eye on him from afar for the past 2 years, as we were in the same art history class one semester of my freshman year and had dubbed him "Art History Boy."
"Yah, you kinda reek." I probably said. I have always been an excellent flirt.
When I heard his room mate call him "Go", I thought "Wow, that seems to really fit him. Much more then "Brandon." He didn't seem like a Brandon to me. He doesn't seem like a Brandon to himself. But I continued to call him Brandon for a couple of weeks, because it was the safe thing to do. I believe I also called him "Sweet Cheeks" a couple of times, as that's what he usually signed the messages as that he left me on the whiteboard we kept in our apartment. Early in our dating days, he invited me and my room mate, along with his room mate to go with his family up at their cabin for General Conference. After hearing all those people call him Go the entire weekend, I could no longer think of him as Brandon. I gradually began to call him Go and have never turned back. Here is a picture from our early dating days.


Today, when I talk about him with people who only know him as Brandon, I call him "Brandon", though saying that name sounds totally weird and forced, which it is. But I've always done it out of courtesy, I guess. But since I view this blog as a journal of sorts, I use his name "Go." So there you go. Clarification.

The splendor

I contribute to several blogs and I'm posting these pictures of our new floor on every single one of them. Go finished the floors this past weekend (actually the baseboards still need to be re-painted) and we are loving them. As you can see, he did a FANTASTIC job. It is times like this when I see him build and/or create something beautiful with his skillful hands that I think "Wow. Someday he's going to make a lot of women very happy with their new boobs."

What came first?

The chicken:
Peter Bjorn & John "Young Folks" from the album "Writer's Block" released in 2006


Or the egg:
SNL's Christmas Song 2001


Even though the egg seems to have come first due to their dates, I still think the chicken somehow came first.

The Center of Everything

I just finished a book on tape that I thoroughly enjoyed. The Center of Everything by Laura Moriatry is a coming-of-age novel but not as obnoxious as most coming-of-age novels, a tale made up of several themes, the main one being unrequited love (a theme that never tires) set in the 80's with complex and truthful characters. I finished the tapes yesterday and have found myself thinking about the characters all day today. I connected with several of them for different reasons, I guess. It's a great read (or listen) if you're in the mood for some good teen angst. As a side note, because of some strong language, if you're next in line to host a book club that is made up of super conservative ladies, I would recommend passing on this one and reading it by your own evil self.

Cool website

I just found a really cool website. Maybe I'm the last one to hear about it but whatever. I live in PA, so I do the best I can.
It's www.etsy.com. "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade." There's some really funky stuff. I might try to sell some of my stuff on there. I have about 50 projects half done so I'd actually have to finish one of them first. Hm. That could be problematic...

A year ago today

Where were you a year ago today?

I was in San Francisco. Ruby was left with Grandma Tena and Grandpa Ron for 5 days (ah...those pre-Diabetes days were bliss and I didn't even know it then. I cannot picture myself leaving her for 5 days now. I can barely leave her for an hour or two without calling and asking what her blood glucose level is.) Brandon and I took off to go to San Francisco with May in tow since I was still nursing her (which is why I am so chubby in all of these photos.)



We fell in love with the city and decided that we would eventually move near there--south of SF, far enough away to not live in the city, which is flooded with plastic surgeons but close enough to go there anytime we want to. Anyway, we stayed in this funky boutique hotel, ate FANTASTIC food (that's a whole other blog entry my friends), perused art galleries (not stuffy ones, our favorites were the student shows), caught the very last day of the Chuck Close exhibit at the SFMOMA which was UNREAL, nursed May in the most random places, my favorite being a cathedral near China Town. When we arrived, it was empty and quiet and very peaceful. I enjoyed all of the stained glass windows, flying buttresses, candles, etc. We were sitting in one of the back pews while I nursed May and in walked about 10 "brides" followed by about 20 people with cameras around their necks. It was a bridal/wedding photography class, so that was entertaining watching the many photo shoots going on all around us. Hope they didn't mind the chubby girl breastfeeding her baby in the background of their photos.



We did some cheesy tourist stuff like went to China Town, took a "cruise" out beneath the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz (nursed May in a Gap dressing room across from the pier), road the trollies, etc.


My favorite memory was one night we decided to walk around down by Ghiradelli Square. After eating chocolate and finding the rest of the square pretty vacated, (nursed May in an abandoned office building) it was very dark and we were getting hungry for some real food. It had started raining and SF was experiencing record wind speeds. We went to get on the trolly to take us back up but they were shut down and most of the taxies weren't out either - unbeknownst to us, there was a severe wind advisory advising everyone to stay inside. So, we were forced to walk back up the very long and very steep Nob Hill (nursed May on one of its park benches one sunny day) but it was so fun. We couldn't believe how hard the wind was blowing, we were sopping wet. It was so hard getting up the hill, we looked like those mimes who pretend to walk against the wind. The pictures that are at night and blurry were taken that night. The wind was blowing so hard we couldn't keep our hands still enough to take a decent picture. Halfway up, we needed sustanance and a major breather so we took refuge in a Japanese restaurant. We were the only customers and filled up on sushi and great Miso soup while the waitress held May and danced around the empty restaurant with her. Then we headed back up the hill. It took us about 3 hours all together but it we had a great time.

The whole city was so alive and stimulating, I felt very inspired and like anything in the whole world was possible. While in SF, I bought a book called The Creativty Book: A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance. But really, just by visiting the city, I was totally jumpstarted creatively. If I had followed the book's program religiously, it would have ended today. So what were you doing a year ago?