Today Is Lovely

largely because the sun is shining and the air reached up to it, finally collecting over forty speckles of warmth to stipple fresh freckles on my skin. It's a wonder what fragrant spell a mere dusting of sun can put me under. As though my heart was tossed in the dryer to get the wrinkles out, now hung neatly back in my chest the heat wraps me from the inside out. Like my lips were just pulled out of the oven, a crescent smile gently cools above my chin. Like the greatest vacation spent in bed in a book, my soul feels at home on holiday when my body is tucked into folds of sun cover.

My phone supposes cold will pull down the curved corner of this lemony quilt tomorrow till only bare sheets of snow fit the ground. The month is March, but the valley is Utah, so winter will still rule for a season. Tomorrow casts backward ideas into today, but tomorrow only might be; it might be flurriously cold, but no one can say for certain until tomorrow becomes today.

Today, the breeze paints my face with powder pastels; the buzz of a million blades of grass pushing to the sky carbonates my reservoir of blood; leafless trees point and whisper as I bounce along on my toes, and I feel so famous under the light of that high, bright spot I'm convinced they'll name a summer flower after me. Today is just that lovely.

Five Years Seen

We've all been asked before to consider the question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Considering the obvious impossibility to look into the future, I never truly pondered and prepared a realistic futuristic answer to this question whenever it was asked. I'm one of those goal-shunning, flow-going life-livers. It's not that I'm aimless (I have passion that steers me in satisfactory directions), I just don't like to think I see myself deciding myself five years from now, let alone just tomorrow. Who KNOWS what could happen in 24 hours! Why determine the destination before the route is guaranteed to even exist?

I'm not being entirely truthful. I do have hopeful destinations in my heart and head and I project them into the pretend future, and those idea-destinations propel my daily motions, my day-to-day actions, and everyday choices. I just wanted to use three ways of saying the same thing right then.

Feb. 27

On this day in 2008 I walked onto the top step of the descending escalator then stopped. But it soon became the bottom step and Terminal 2 spit me out on the great salt lake city pavement. My family picked me up and took me home from my mission. Soggy boots walked the streets of France mere hours earlier. Airplanes walk the air so swiftly.

And time has now leapt five huge strides to the present, and what have I got to show for it?

How about an awesome Top Five of the Last Five list? Here is where those five years have seen me.

2008

• Dated and broke up with the last "official boyfriend" I've had. Wow. I've dated since, duh, I've tried; but no one's called me his girlfriend in 4.5 years...

• Drove me some school bus.

• Grandma Bonnie offered funds for school. God bless that woman forever. I took an Editing class at UVU and discovered my passions had professional application. Switched the track right under my wheels. Vision changed.

Center: Biker Bonnie ;)

• Hiked to Havasupai falls. Joined facebook to prove it.

• And, Uncle Scot added Vickie to my family.

2009

• Little bro left on mission to AZ.

• Started up yoga.

• Dad added Shawna to my family.

• Sister gave me nephew #2

• I finished Math courses forever more.

2010

• Drove buses for the Vancouver, BC Winter Olympics and met my best Merilee and Seth friends. Also drove during Paralympics.

Swiss Wheelchair Curling Team

• Went to Alaska for the third time, this time to work with Royal Caribbean Tours. Also bought a ukulele. Combined the two to win best safety speech ever award.

• Treated my sister, my mom, and myself to a discounted 12-night Mediterranean cruise. Saw those pyramids in Egypt. And other things around the neighborhood.

• Also visited Paris and its Eiffel and Louvre.

• Got my first smart phone

2011

• Took a sculpture class, an astronomy class, and a biology class. Marveled at the sculpting of universes.

• Went to Alaska again. Did some deep sea halibut fishing! 

• Moved in with these dashing dolls.

• Found out I was famously awkward...awkwardly famous? AFP (Awkward Family Photos) selected this sibling picture to appear in the 2012 Calendar, the board game, and a 999-piece puzzle. We're the prettiest awkward.

• Went an entire month without wearing a bra. Sorta wrote about the experience on my blog; also wrote up the whole experience for my non-fiction writing class. Still don't know what I'll do with that work. In the meantime enjoy this from my Movember celebration that same month.

Pin the stache on the Biebe

2012

• Became Editor-in-Chief of Touchstones journal at UVU. That rocked.

• Had poems and an article published in V Magazine (now Hex), the arts and entertainment section of UVU Review newspaper.

See text here

• Scored the publishing internship for the summer at Deseret Book. Biggest miracle experience of the decade f'real. Met some new besties.

• Took a Digital Document Design class. Built a website that had a sweet homepage and a secret page.

I tweaked those buttons (except the middle one) in Photoshop

• This beautiful lady got a degree! 

She be my mama

Now

• Most recently my sister brought me nephew #3. Great way to start off a new year.

The past five years have been full. Blessings and challenges, heartaches and triumphs, pressures and joys, miracles and miracles and faith and learning and love. Lots of love. I imagine if I'd sat and pondered about it, I would have liked to have "seen" marriage and kiddies in these five years...but knowing my ways, I would have forgotten to be specific; so, just as well, I have seen loads of marriages and heaps of kids all over the place in these five years. Just not my own. All in good time. As the plane flies.

Coping with Pain, Survey

As humans, I believe we've all come to know a thing or two about pain. From heartaches to stomach aches, we all have different ways of coping with the sometimes indescribable feelings. I am compiling responses to the survey below about coping with pain.

Depending on the quantity of responses, I will include as many of them as I can for my article which will be going into Hex magazine at my school, Utah Valley University.  The survey is set up to be anonymous and I hope to gather many honest, sincere responses by TUESDAY JAN. 29 at midnight. It should only take about ten minutes, depending on how deep you want to go into your philosophies! (but your response length IS limited because so is my time :])

Once the article is featured, I will send out a link to the magazine's website for all to see.  This should be really quite interesting to get a panoramic view of the strategies our neighbors have of coping with pain. PLEASE share and forward this link to your friends and your friends' friends (the more varied backgrounds the better) and so on!

If you need any more information, contact Emily at mlefair@gmail.com
Thank you!!

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3Wp2wWnaRfE9Wrb

Looky!

I made a website!


http://digitaldesign3340.com/fairchild/exhibit/index.html


It even has a secret page! Go find it, go, go!

Peacemaker

I had two poems published in Touchstones journal this semester. They asked me to read one at their release night event, My Word!. I read "Peacemaker" and I think it went really well. I was nervous at first. Usually I'm not so bad, but I had to calm my mind and whomping heart with some discreet yoga breathing before going up. Man, sometimes it just feels good to get applauded for doing what you love.

beautiful cover by Frankie Mercado; digital medium

some wonderful publications this semester!

So, the sound and image matchup of this next media clip is off. Kinda drives me crazy. But the sound doesn't suck, so whatev; now you can listen as you read along! (*the hanging art in the background is not Japanese, though that would've made its presence cooler. It's Vietnamese for "patience," which is a key element for being a true peacemaker.)

Sometimes, when I exit the school, I see this plume of white smoke some distance to the north. Oftentimes it makes me ponder what it must have been like waking, breathing free on a still morning in August, year 1945.

I could have been born any time, any place, but as it happened, my grandpa, yet unmarried, was at war the morning Enola Gay awoke, breathing, pregnant with the death of hundreds of thousands of volunteers of the enemy. Drifting on divine wind, Gay dropped her Little Boy; a steel stork with nuclear delivery, a warrior child whose entire life would last 44.4 seconds in freefall.

I might have been placing a pot of rice on the flame, or pouring steaming water for father’s tea, and I know I would have felt a pausing measure of profound pleasure in the whispering morning air, cool like clammy palms, so I would have stepped out to the porch to listen. I wouldn’t so much hear the lightning geyser erupt in town, but every eyelid wipe would try for weeks to scrape the inverse x-ray pillar from my retinas.

Here from school, where I see the smoky finger poking at the sky, my guess is the town of Pleasant Grove would disappear, every cant slab of concrete an unmarked headstone. I used to live in PG. I want to say I remember what that plume is from. I can't.

I picture the people in the surgical clinic above which the Little Boy released his nuclear tantrum: the nurse bowing, lifting the page of a patient's chart; the patient turning his sick gaze toward the window, his breathing subtle like the leaves nodding sleepily at the summer morning sun—

then in the profound silence of full volume noise, an instantaneous slurping of every atom simultaneously resisted by a force that turns teeth to ash snatches their two bodies, etches them for an instant in the transparent monolith of time, the rupture of artificial sun searing each human statue, radiating skeletons framed in charcoal silhouettes—

and after leaving a melting tear in the earth, their stunned souls rise on a smoldering halo of smoke.

Dead end

How should you

feel when you see

the man you believed

was dead, who

tried to take your life? Filled

with burning

relief, still I lost

my appetite when

I saw him,

that secret gagged

and bound behind

his teeth, captivating

the woman hanging

on his arm, dazzling

expectations strangling

her left ring finger. He will take

her home, bury her

alive in his

parents’ basement.

Jack

Father of ten children including my mother, WWII navy sailor, 3-year missionary in Brazil, counselor for married couples and families—this man has left unfading footprints of good all over the world. In his old age as he slowly loses footing on the current reality in which he lives, I am honored to be a physical product of his goodness and will never forget the many great things his life has brought to mine. The rose he would send would carry the scent of eternal grandpa love, which smells something like chimney fires, newspapers, button up shirts, and Eastern Oregon wind.

grandpa Jack and cousin Hannah, 2009

This week my grandpa's progressing dementia steered him through a stroke. Mom told me Gramps was still a bit responsive, could at least still hear and seemed to recognize words expressed, and that we would be able to call and tell him goodbye. He would hear us.

Since his condition has been somewhat poor for months now, the expectation of his departure was clear, and so there's been a degree or two less heartache to see him get closer to that end. I pressed "call" with remarkable composure.

Tom answered, said things were as stable as they'd be for the next unknowable time. "He's just been waiting for your call." I know Gramps wasn't remembering people lately and how they're connected to him, and Tom was just saying what he said to say something, but it painted in my mind the possibility that though a stroke further immobilized Grandpa's body, perhaps it had unchained his mind, and perhaps he truly was waiting to be reconnected to family, to hear voices, and say goodbye.

Tom asked if I was ready, I said I guess so. I heard some movement, then from a distance Tom's voice said, "K, Em, he can hear you."

That's when I noticed another sound, one that had blended in with Tom's movement so I hadn't recognized it: the soft, uneven rasp of life's surviving breath.

It's a wonder sometimes how an old body sticks around so long when so much of its cognitive functioning has shut down. We take each breath, yet we hardly notice them. It's a perfectly automatic reaction to life. The breath of life. Our souls keep working the diaphragm, pulling, until they're called to another home. My own breath caught in my throat.

"Hey Grandpa. It's Emily. Big Em." I cleared the tightening in my throat with a laugh at my family's nickname to differentiate me from the other Emilys. But the laugh only tipped those inevitable emotions  over the edge of my eyelids.



Strange thing, talking through phones. I was thinking about this the other day: sound travels millions-of-words-a-second fast from one mouth to another ear. We're miles apart yet we're instantly connected through sound.

But silence travels even faster. Knowing he was there, hearing me, but unable to respond . . . that communication transmitted directly, immediately to my heart. I muttered something about gratitude for history and legacy. I kept offering a silent moment ample enough for that warm voice to give even an incoherent reply. I said with a warbling whisper, "I love you, Grandpa."

And then I was quiet. I just listened. And wept. I wanted to tell him more, things going on in my life, but I had this feeling like, in a couple days, he'll be privy to it all, in ways inexpressible, and so the silence felt okay, felt right. It felt like goodbye.

I pictured the home phone resting near his ear, propped on a pillow. I projected myself there, phones connecting and disappearing, relaying more than sound, and I imagined my heart resting on his shoulder and I wrapped his still, breathing, unresponsive body in my love.

Tom picked up the phone and broke the illusory connection projecting through a cascade of tears. "Em, are ya done?"

"Yeah, I'm not really sure what to say, I guess." I was sitting in the hall at school, crying, watching walking people pass in front of me while my ear was linked to the echoes of North Benson Street, Union, Oregon.

I think it is possible to be in two places at once.

A Not-so-Super Power?

What shall I compare it to?

A bucket to a well is as I am to people's souls.

A match to a hard, dry surface is as I am to people's souls.

As a siren to a sailor, a muse to a musician, a pair of scissors to a puppet's strings.

I've recently realized I have this unspoken ability to charm demons, as it were. Perhaps you have been touched by this "awesome" power of mine. I can think of a few people already who exhibit symptoms of exposure. 

Here, I'll explain.

I'm an honest person. Not perfectly, sure, but I can't stand to house incongruities, unbalanced feelings, unattended weaknesses, disturbances of peace, or unrepentant acts or urges within me. When something's not right, I scour my insides to pinpoint the source and determine a solution. I'm a healer, a peacemaker, a life guard. For myself and, peripherally, for others.

See, I don't take crap from myself. I know when I'm coming up with excuses, justifications—all those limp impostors of security—and when that happens, I smack it away. I always try. Sometimes I'm around others when they start to take crap from themselves. We've all done it. We may or may not know what it looks like as we're doing it, but if you try to be self aware, you'll recognize the crap.

We want to coddle our unconfident emotions, we steam and pout to justify our sour moods and wallow in them longer, we attempt to protect our faltering temperaments by wrapping them in more faulty behaviors. Why do we do that? It's like we enjoy doing things wrong over and over in an attempt to ruin our esteem and potential so we don't have to work as hard to be good. Or maybe because we care so much about our tender centers that we want to keep them from pain—even if that pain refines, purifies, gives true strength and protection.

A prick of the needle to draw blood for the diagnosis is as I am to people's souls.

So when I see this happening in myself, I turn off my usual feelers of tender listening and give myself a "you're excruciatingly stupid if you actually want to put that crap in your mouth" look and vie for a better route to redirect my self-pitying sorrow, unforgiving reaction, unrighteous judgment, irrational fear, crippling self-doubt, etc., to a destination that will bring me back to the still, peaceful feelings of the spirit and restore an inner equilibrium. 

If I see this behavior brewing in others, I try to be their truest friend and smack it away. When they see the "what the heck, don't eat that crap" look on my face, they are often in an emotional state that doesn't handle a lack of tenderness very well. I admit that I'll seem uncaring and unhelpful, but seriously, don't make up crap and take it from yourself. I'm on your side.

But there are other times when I don't realize I'm drawing people to face their demons, when I'm catalyst, impetus to self-inspection, and then I find out later. 

Examples:

1) Mission companion number five. We struggled a lot. Living together and more importantly working and teaching together without unity was very straining, draining. Eventually I learned my unsettledness was due to my own stingy judging that she was doing things wrong where I was doing them right, and instead of focusing on the who, I focused on the what. What was right? Love and service. So I served her, and that made me love her, and the consequences of that were unity and harmony. And she later told me that because of my being a complete prickle bush stickler for obeying rules (she said to me "at first it felt like I was living with the mission president. That was really hard." ha!) and always pestering for peace, her own testimony (in seemingly unrelated topics) was strengthened. I didn't ever know she juggled those elements of her knowledge of God and the restoration of the gospel, but my own testimony and the way my way of living made her uncomfortable apparently helped her face the unsettled things within herself that she was trying to protect, and she realized she could heal them instead of hide them.

2) A male who wasn't a boyfriend and who got more outta me than a not-boyfriend should. We struggled to meet anywhere close to a middle to decide if we should officially date...lots of back and forth crap. One day, at the pitiful end-part of our non-relationship, he said something like "you've helped me realize I don't want to live the gospel anymore." He explained some things that put ache into my soul. This was a time I wasn't happy for my super power. Sure it wasn't because of me that he had those desires, but I can't help but wonder if our less-than-ideal interaction wasn't impetus for his realization. If it was what he truly desired to do, sooner or later it would have manifested itself in his life. Probably. Perhaps he could have kept going through the motions long enough to realize the benefit in christlike living, but instead I interfered and made things happen faster in his life than they should have. Who knows. I apologized for anything I could claim responsibility for and left him not a bit better than I found him. Maybe.

3) A male who wasn't a boyfriend but who perhaps would have like to have been. He is a quiet sort and he went out of his comfort zone to get to know me and ask me out. I agreed to see if I could be interested as I got to know him better, but ultimately I didn't feel like a good match for him/him for me. And he didn't go away without aches of his own, but he later told me I was impetus in showing him what things within himself needed attention. He would say I did leave him better than I found him. Not that I've "left" him—he's still my friend; I just don't want to think up a different way of saying "leave it better than you found it." 

It's just my general Mary Poppinsy desire to help people get to the honest roots within themselves. I know personally honesty with myself is what has set me free. Maybe this power is what makes me a good editor, too. I try not to use my editing powers on people (people are too complex for there to be "grammatically correct" way to live), but when I see the lies, I don't indulge them. Sorry if you ever encounter this power at a time when all you'd rather want is a hug. I really do need to attach hug powers to the end of my "don't take no crap" powers.

Truth sets free by nature. So I look at myself with a truthoscope and pluck out the lies; apparently I help others do the same. Not always, but quite often, if they get close enough. I've decided overall it's a good thing, if not always immediately, then ultimately. Because the truth will always taste better than crap.

The bucket dipped in an impure well will only offer impure water. Fire will destroy whatever cannot endure it, or will refine what is stronger than it. A diagnosis offers impetus to find a cure. Without the truth we will crumple in weakness. Don't take that untrue crap from yourself or anyone else. Draw from true super powers, wherever they're found, and become your best and true self.

Heroinism Kinda Feels Weird

I can dress the part, but don't know that I'd really be a good heroine. I always feel kinda bad for people—even deserving people—when they get cuffed n' locked up. But, since their own choices lead them into trouble, trouble is wont to befall them—so, better that they take the fewest possible bystanders into trouble with them, right?

Well, if singling out the 'bad guy' and saving possible bystanders is what a heroine does, today I was kind of a heroine.

My roommate and I were driving to go get groceries at Costco, then later to Winco, a trip that took a total of two hours. On our way to Costco it was 6:20pm, about 95 degrees, and traffic was slowly moving north up University Ave.

The pickup truck in front of us was leading a graceful waltz across the painted lines of the road, and he was also starting up from the red lights sluggishly and then driving really slow. As we nervously passed him by, I took a good stare at him. The evening sun filled the cab of his truck, making his bronze skin and orange shirt appear the same in color. His eyes were squinting against the light and his head was nodding under the heavy heat. The poor dude looked exhausted. When his eyes were open, they were hardly slits. He was in a real subconscious gutter . . . if that makes any sense.

It doesn't, really. Oh well.

So, I wasn't sure if his driving was a real emergency (we all get tired, right . . .) but I shot a text to my cop friend and he said that it's a danger and gave me the non-emergency dispatch number, prepping me to have the license number, vehicle description, and direction of travel ready to report. He also told me the driver might be under the influence of something, so it's better to call. Both my roommate and I thought he looked like such a nice, clean, super tired old man—that just never occurred to us. See, I really just give people the benefit of the doubt. I'd be a real sucker of a heroine.

I called 801-852-6210. Call this number if you have questions. If it's an emergency, the number's 911 ;) heh. okay, but really, the first number will ask you first if you want English or Spanish, then all these other "choose [number] if you need [what you need] or stay on the line and you'll be connected with dispatch." There was no "press [number] if you need to report suspicious driving/drivers," so I stayed on the line). When I was connected to the polite and professional female voice, we began communicating, but at this point we were no longer following the dancing, drowsy driver. I'd looked at the license plate, but now that Utah has letters and numbers that aren't segregated, I have a harder time retaining them in my short-term memory. (Does anyone else feel that way?)

"Hello, Provo Police Dispatch."

"Um, hi. I'm calling to report a drowsy driver headed north on University Ave."

"Okay, can you describe the vehicle?"

I proceeded to list things I remembered about the license plate, car, driver, etc. We interrupted each other a couple times, and I felt like a very clumsy, tattle-telling citizen, but she managed to get all she could out of me. She even asked me for my name and phone number, which I was curious about at first, but now it makes sense, cuz if it ever turned out to be a serious matter I reported, they might need to contact me for witness stuffs.

"Okay, we'll send an officer over that way, thanks."

We said our adieus, the voice and I, and then Lori and I commenced our important mission: grocery acquisition.

Two hours later, laden with fine foods and returning home, we were driving south on the same Univ. Ave., and I was actually thinking to myself, "hmm, we'll never know if that guy made it home safe or what." Up ahead I saw some flashing red-and-blues on our side of the road; I hoped there wasn't an accident. Accidents are rarely happy, and they often tend to cause traffic, which is less than happy. But as we cruised at normal speeds closer to the Police SUV, suddenly my mouth dropped.

The SUV was pulled over behind the truck I called in! The drowsy driver wasn't in his truck, and the whole scene just had a strange feel to it—first because I knew I'd had a hand in the deal, and second, because if it had just been a "go home and get some sleep" situation, perhaps the driver would still be in his truck, or at least not closed up in the police car, right? He'd be trying to pass the test of walking in a straight line while trying to touch his fingers to his nose with his eyes closed, and reciting the ABCs backwards. All the cop shows teach us this.

So my roommate and I bubbled with curiosity, mostly amazed that two hours later he was still on the road, this time headed the other direction. Curious, right?

Well, turns out he'd been DUI! What was he U the I of? I don't know, but he'd been seriously swerving. I guess that sucks that he got arrested, will have that on his record, et cetera (because what if he'd never done such a thing before in his life? What if his wife just passed away and he'd irrigated his sorrows with booze? What if somebody slipped something in the manure in the back of his truck and he was just an innocent bystander himself, high off the fumes? See, we just never know), but better that he didn't cause an accident, right? Maybe he'll be smarter in the future and respect the other drivers on the road by not driving when his abilities are seriously impaired.

And I hope he's not sending hate vibes out into the universe toward me. Not that such nega-rays would affect a superb heroine such as myself. . . . This week I donated blood, dropped off your generous birthday-gift donations to United Way, called in a DUI. You know, all in a week's work.

That same roommate and I saved three lives each on Monday. A heroine's life never rests, so long as she has blood in her veins! ;)

28-year-old To Do List

My poetry teacher last semester had us write up a list of things we would accomplish in the next year, a list with as many items as we will have years behind us. These are the 28 things I came up with.

(1)  Dip naked into water outdoors
(2)  Operate a heavy construction machine
(3)  Romantically share an Umbrella with a man
(4)  Blog once a week
(5)  Listen to a mountain
(6)  Eat a spoonful of sugar after I take some medicine

(7)  Float down the river

(8)  Take a hitchhiker wherever it is he or she needs/wants to go
(9)  Empty my car trunk, vacuum it out
(10)  Take a Nap in a hammock

(11)  Perhaps join a protest

(12)  Ask Jason out (unless he’s gay; then be his friend and find someone else to ask out)
(13)  Narrow down my body fat percentage
(14)  Take a (second) Date to Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors and ask my 31 Flavor Questions while we eat ice cream (but not enough to negate previous item)

(15)  Compose several “poetraits” for family and friends

(16)  Activate a stagnant brother or sister, even just a little
(17)  Dust
(18)  Raise Donations for a charitable organization

(19)  Yoga more

(20)  Actually create definition in my calf muscles
(21)  Take my Nephews on a spectacular outing, maybe to the zoo

(22)  Save money for the future

(23)  Eliminate half my stuff. I obviously don't need what sits in boxes more than half the year
(24)  Investigate something that puzzles me, like the funny bone or Lady Gaga
(25)  Grant a wish
(26)  Have a poem published somewhere awesome
(27)  Send Thank you letters in the mail

(28)  Play the piano more; really learn Clair de Lune

Shall I elaborate a little?

Ones I won't be able to do solely on my onesie, therefore not entirely sure they will happen:
(2), (3), (8), (26)

(1) I've just never done. Not sure I really want to, but, I will be going on a trip to Lake Powell in August...maybe when everyone's asleep I could dip in the lake real quick. Catch some fun disease.

(7) I could do on my own, but that would be lame. I say a river tubing party should be planned soon.

(8) I really want to do. Won't let myself do it alone, though. Safety first!

(9) Not sure I've ever done this. I've had my car 8 years...

(10) the hammock I have recently acquired is actually and unfortunately quite under qualified to assist me here. Perhaps someone I know has a hammock they can spare for one nap?

(11) the perhaps is key, here; I'm very non-protestant. I don't seek out protests. I don't see myself beginning to seek protests. But maybe, because I'm 28 now, I'll make an exception-al effort.

(12) well, since creating this list, I have discovered that this individual is not gay, but he is also not interested even in being my friend, so I will find a substitute, and then ask him out on a date.

(14) So I had this great date idea for a second (or 3rd, 4th, go with what feels right) date. I've been collecting questions in a note in my phone's "notes" app ("what do you have a passion for?" and "what TV series or book would you be a character in?") for a time when I actually get a 2nd/3rd/4th date. We'll go to Baskin Robbins, get a couple scoops of ice cream, and ask and answer 31 questions. We will just melt into each other's hearts during this date, I'm sure. So far my collection is only up to 24, and some of my current questions are unsatisfying. If you have suggestions, please share.

(17) this is something I rarely do. It just comes right back, what's the point...but at least once in this next year of my life I'll wipe up some dust somewhere...

(18) is happening this Saturday! I'm excited. I'm having a "birthday" party but instead of presents for me, I've asked for donations for the Center for Women and Children in Crisis. Click there to see what donation items they need and see if you want to participate. If you're not local, find your own charity to donate to, or this one'll happily take your money, too, I'm sure.

(19), (28) already failing well at these. But, I am signed up for fall classes for both subjects!

(21) can't wait to do this one!

(25) I'd rather enjoy granting the sensible wish of some deserving person, so far as is in my power. I'll make it my next charitable project after this Saturday.

Man, double tens and an eight. At the moment, that seems like a lot. Amazing what twenty-eight years will do to a body and soul.

Grateful to be who I've become, excited for today, happy to care for tomorrow.

And now, for some media

what I had for my birthday dinner. i love me too much; so generous

my lovely co-interns, Katja, Abby, and Holly. We have so much fun. This is them posing with my birthday treat of muffins and popcorn. They are too perfect!

me gazing into the future...or, onto Utah Valley from the Y. My roomies and I hiked the Y on Sunny's birthday.

I would say this proves we hiked up there together, but you can't tell it's us, really. Take my word for it.

I don't know when the tradition began, but I buy myself a coconut for my birthday every year. And generally, this is precisely how I bust it open. I love coconut everything, except for the coconut milk—happy to cook with it, but can't drink that straight!