Last Year in Utah

I am going to write this post as if I'm remembering it in 20 years, just a disclaimer (it makes me feel like I accomplished something).

After graduating from BYU, I decided to stay in Utah just a bit longer to work. I had a great job on campus working with the RSS and they offered me to stay on for the summer. I thought that making a few extra bucks (I actually got paid quite decently) couldn't hurt any, especially not after being accepted to Northwestern. And so, I stayed, roomed with my best friend, Lauren, who to this day, still doesn't remember how we met. Whenever we attended social gatherings or someone was brave enough to ask us if we already knew each other and how we had met, she always responded, school, and I would finish, we're in the same major. I don't think she ever realized that school wasn't a decent enough answer, it left everyone wondering in which aspect of the college life we had so pleasantly discovered each others existence. Needless to say, for memories sake, we attended the same intro course to the major and not to mention several classes thereafter. 

Now to the point. Lauren quickly fell into a routine of school, work, and internship duties, while I, the independent person that I was, worked from home. Full-time. This was...boring. Not that I didn't go out, but everything always seemed to happen after 6pm, and I was "off of work" at 5 (even if I didn't work from home, I would still be bored for at least an hour). And this is where my other roommates come into play. One of my roommates, Amanda, who we had met briefly when we moved in, traveled to Haiti for some humanitarian-feel-good type of work, not that humanitarian-feel-good type of work isn't essential in today's society, how else are people supposed to know that they have been doing everything wrong for centuries? No but seriously, it's good work. I would do it too if I weren't too chicken. My other roommate, Hayley, was a sweet girl from Korea. Her mom came to visit her once and Hayley was kind enough to ask us if her mom could stay. If it were me, I wouldn't have bothered to ask, we all have our own rooms for a reason. But, that's just the sweet type of person that she was. Well, while her mom was staying with us I didn't actually realize how often she would be in the kitchen, which I also didn't mind a single bit, it would keep me from making trips to the cupboards every 10 minutes to grab a snack. Not that I couldn't talk to Hayley's mom...well actually I couldn't, she spoke Korean, and as adept as I am at understanding people with accents, my 21 years of Spanish training didn't help me any.

Well, one day, as I was working from home, again, I went out to see what I would eat for breakfast, I was quickly dissatisfied with what was in the pantry, so I made my way back to my room. A couple of minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. It was Hayley's mom with a sandwich on a plate in one hand and a cup of milk in another (might I add the cup was a mug someone obviously bought in Chicago; made my day for several reasons). Anyway, I thanked her, relished that sandwich, the milk not so much (don't like milk) and continued working. I then decided it would be a good time to go check the mail, and so I did, as I was leaving, Hayley's mom, in her broken English and pointing to a cell phone and a piece of paper asked if I could dial a number for her. I gladly took the phone in my hand, this woman did feed me after all, and I began to dial, except...it's an old phone...and well, it took me a while to figure out how to unlock it, something about a menu key and then a star key and then...yeah you get it. Well I dialed the number for her, after several unsuccessful jabs at the keys and went to go get the mail. 

On my way back to my room, Hayley's mom held out the phone to me, so I took it and hung up the call. That is all I could assume she wanted. Some of you may be asking where was Hayley in all of this, well she was at school, most duh. Anyway, I walked into my room and 5 seconds later another knock on my door, so I opened it and YOU GUESSED IT, it was Hayley's mom! (I apologize if there is any tone of frustration, because honestly, having Hayley's mom come to visit was probably the most human interaction I had all week and led to ZERO frustrating moments). She carried in her hand a plate, with two hard boiled eggs. I stared at them kind of puzzled as she took an egg and motioned it towards the plate as if she were cracking the egg and then she would carry it up to my face. I guessed she wanted me to peel them and eat them, and so I did. I probably would have died and decayed in my room if Hayley's mom hadn't been there. So, Hayley's mom, wherever you may be, thank you. And an added thank you because you told me my eyes were pretty, so obv you are one of my favoritist people in the world.

The End.

Something Borrowed and Something Very UNblue

I used to think, back when I was a theater employee at the ripe young age of 16, that an hour lunch was more than enough time to eat and have some time to spare; but, then it took me almost two hours to eat my lunchables (without the treat and drink, a rip-off if you ask me). Apparently, I am making the transition to senescence and will soon be spoon-fed by some of my closest friends and relatives.

On that note (the one of imminent deterioration), I have been reading Tina Fey's Bossypants (yes, I googled whether or not book titles are underlined, italicized, or in quotes) and have come to the realization that I have nothing to leave my posterity (AND that I should write a book so I can start thinking about paying off student loans I haven't even acquired yet.) I know what you're thinking, but Liz, you're only 21, you will have your whole life to make memories and then compile them in a 300-page autobiography titled, (how do I double italicize?) Lizzing Through Life. To which I have an answer--I can barely remember the first 21 years of my life, how am I supposed to remember the next 21 when my brain is supposedly deteriorating faster than I can type out this sentence (I have horrible wpm. I still look down at the keyboard, but that's another story). Example, I took a 2-minute break from writing this post to Google work-related nonsense and already forgot where I was going with this post. I don't remember if I was going to make a sudden resolution to exercise my long-term memory or if I was going to begin to document my childhood memories, or what I have left of them anyway.

Why not both? Well, I've already tried to exercise my brain since infancy (whenever Brain Age for Nintendo DS came out is when I consider my infancy to have begun). Every night before I went to bed I would borrow my little brother's Nintendo DS and play for 30-minutes, or usually until it told me I had successfully reached a new level of intelligence. I soon lost interest, however, and...actually, now that I think about it, some would argue my creative peak was probably around the same time I conducted my brain-exercising-nightly-ritual...but if that was my creative peak then I have some rough years ahead of me...ANYWAY, the ritual died. Now, in my geriatric age (I may or may not have made that word up) I try to find ways to prevent Alzheimer's by taking different routes home, a task made simple by the round-about located south of my apartment complex. 

Ah yes, I remember now. I will begin to journal. This seems easy enough, but...it isn't. Since I was old enough to know what a notebook was, I began to collect probably thousands of dollars worth of the most ingenious (and less than genius) varieties of notebooks (ask my Mom). I would literally go around the house looking for notebooks to store in my desk. So, one would assume I was fond of writing...I'm not. I never wrote in those notebooks. As a matter of fact, if I got the urge to use a single sheet in one of my glorious notebooks, I would promptly tear it out. I had to leave my notebooks unscathed! I soon began to realize that no matter what I tried to fill the pages with, it never seemed good enough for the notebook. My handwriting was too messy, my diary entries were to blah, my ink splat drawings were too similar to each other. It was never good enough, so I stopped. And now, I must begin again. Except. SOLUTION. I will not write in a notebook. I will write on the INTERNETS. I know, I'm behind on the times, but can you blame me? I already admitted to needing a caregiver in my near future.

Now to the title of this post. It has nothing to do with marriage. I can probably come up with some deep way of tying memories into time and thus resulting in the act of borrowing, but...I don't want to waste the space in my brain that can be used to store such implied memories, so I won't be making any complex analogies, at least not today. As for the unblue bit...well, I guess the title does have a little bit to do with marriage, what exactly, I have no idea. Thus, I conclude the first chapter of my memoir-in-progress.

Liz out.

p.s. I hate old people marriage...just thought I'd throw that out there.