Quote

"I'm allergic to fabric softener. I majored in comparative literature at Brown. I hate anchovies. And, I think I'd miss you even if we never met."

Guess which movie I'm in the mood for?

Listening to: "She's So High" by Tal Bachman
Reading: Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Perfect Picture = Picture Perfect

Back to the challenge at last!

The prompt is "a picture of something that makes you happy," but instead, I'm going to talk about a picture that makes me happy. But first, some ambiance.

Yesterday was an interesting day. Celery and I ran into Shantel and Sarah H. at the temple, which was fun, and then I caught a fly with my bare hands while we were waiting in the chapel. I'm told that my face in that moment was something to behold. For the record, little fly feet crawling on one's fingers tickles, but at least it's better than the sensation of one trying to fly up your nose. (Laura just shuddered reading this. Called it.)

At school, there was a palpable feeling that the semester is winding down. We finished translating Pliny's letter about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in my Latin class, and in German we had a potluck.

And now to the point, with some amusing anecdotes thrown in (okay, maybe just one).

The rest of my day was devoted entirely to my final project for my British literature class, which was naturally due at midnight. From 1 p.m. on, I just bit the bullet and tried not to think too much about the fact that I should've started it earlier, "it" being a drawing of Susan Pevensie post-Last Battle.

As I worked, there was a little piece of my brain constantly analyzing whether I was on schedule or not.

Admittedly, I got off to a bit of a rocky start. I spent five minutes cross-multiplying and dividing fractions only to come to the hilariously obvious conclusion that four divided by eight is one-half. And then Matt and Tim cracked up laughing at me. Or with me. One of those. I was laughing too hard myself to tell.

For the next nine hours, everything came together like a happy dream. There were times when I felt like I was just along for the ride. I had forgotten that drawing could be like that. I had forgotten what it was like to sketch and ink and color and not feel like I was senselessly bashing my head against a very solid wall.

I'm still riding waves of amazement at how everything went the way it was supposed to when it was supposed to. The entire experience was exactly the opposite of the Great Heroes Final Stick Figure Fiasco of 2012.

After I finished, my dad and I stood there for a good ten minutes just looking at it.

Sometimes, I blow my own mind. And, that makes me happy.

I feel weird about uploading the whole thing for general viewing before it's been graded, but I will leave you with a little piece to tantalize your mental taste buds.

Listening to: "Kiss Me Slowly" by Parachute
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Seriously Funny Phone Calls

I rarely get phone calls, but I've gotten a couple of gems over the past two days.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was talking with a couple of my friends, I casually looked at my phone because it's a compulsive habit (I'm getting better), and much to my surprise, I saw that I had missed a call from Sarahbeth. This was so unusual that I listened to her voicemail immediately instead of waiting until it wasn't rude to do so (i.e. my friends were still talking when I listened to it). All the message said was something like, "Hey, Rebekah, this is Sarahbeth. Please call me back as soon as you can." *click*

Somebody's dead, I thought. There's been a car accident. One of her brothers is in a coma. Something happened to her parents. Stay calm.

I felt my face become grave. I excused myself and walked off to make the call, hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as I feared. She picked up after only a few rings.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Sarahbeth?"

"Yeah, hi."

"You told me to call you?"

"Oh, yeah. I wanted to know if you'll be in Missouri in early August."

...Um, what? My burgeoning alarm immediately dissipated, but I'm a little embarrassed that my first thought was, Maybe she's trying to set me up with someone who'll only be in Missouri for a short amount of time. Dear Brain, Why?

"I should be. What's up?"

"Will you be one of my bridesmaids?"

"Ohmygoodness, yes!"

The moral of the story is that sometimes a serious-sounding voicemail is misleading. I went from being a little worried to so excited I couldn't stand still. Ask Shantel or Matt. I was bouncing.

I got another incongruous phone call this morning from my dad around seven.

"I know it's Saturday," he said, sounding apologetic and worried, "and you can sleep in, but I wanted to ask you something..."

Uh-oh, I thought, not yet fully awake. He sounds really serious. There must be something going on.

"...Would you like a breakfast burrito?"

Bahaha! Yes, Dad. I would love one.

Listening to: "When We First Met" by hellogoodbye
Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

What Happens When One Tries to Ship Things to Sweden

I'll get back to the challenge soon, but I just wanted to quickly share what happened today when I went to the post office.

After my friend gets home from his mission, I'm really going to miss walking up to postal workers, plunking a seemingly random assortment of dried goods and small children's toys down on the counter, and announcing, "I need to ship this to Sweden." I always get the best reactions.

Today, when I told the man behind the counter that I needed to ship a package to Sweden, he said, "On purpose?" And then he spent five minutes examining the Swedish stamps on the envelope I'd brought with the address. When I laid out everything that needed to go in the package, he went through all the Hot Wheels and tried to remember which ones he had (or at least pretended to).

He was the coolest postal worker I've ever met. He even drew a birthday cake on the front of the package for me in Sharpie and highlighter. He said he was "sprucing it up."

The entire situation was delightfully amusing. Who accidentally ships Tabasco sauce to Sweden?

Listening to: Bones
Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

OCD: Who Punctuated This?

Once, someone asked my friend Josh if he knew what an Oxford comma was. He said, "Of course! I'm friends with Duckie." (That's me. Just roll with it.)

As my friends know, I get a little zealous when it comes to punctuation.

Especially apostrophes.

I was only half joking when I said I wanted to found People for the Ethical Treatment of Apostrophes. The sole  purpose of the apostrophe is to clarify and facilitate written communication, and this is how people use it? Abuse is more like it.

All any punctuation wants to do is help, but people toss marks around willy-nilly like they're confetti or tribbles or something.

I weep for America.

Happy Easter.

Listening to: Smash
Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

My Apologies

I have apparently forgotten how the alphabet goes. L-N-M-O-P doesn't sound too off, though, does it? At least I only swapped the nasals. They sound similar enough. Not that I actually mixed them up. I just sort of forgot about the existence of M for a day or two (long enough to write the last post).

I must apologize for not only the mix-up but also the delay. As previously mentioned, life has been a bit...eh...yeah.

One of the challenge prompts is to talk about my goals for this month. I'm not much of a goal-setter (e.g. my only "career" goal is to be happy), but I'll give it a go.

First, in regards to blogging, I'm going to try to post at least once a week. Weekdays have been pretty frantic lately, but I should be able to find time each weekend to write at least one post. In regards to the challenge and its time limit, we're playing by Calvinball rules now.

Second, I want one of those posts to be humorous because I promised Drewbadour I'd write something funny soon.

Finally, I just want to get through the end of this semester. I'm taking it one day at a time.

...So they're mostly blogging goals. Whatevs.

Listening to: THIS
Reading: Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll