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Tyrant in the Making

I sometimes think that I have tyrannical tendencies. This thought scares me, but I'm not sure why. What's wrong with being a tytrant? Well, a lot of things, I guess. Let me put before you the kernels of tyranny that sometimes pop inside me.

Exhibit A: I got home from being away for the weekend, and one of the first things I noticed was that the bathroom hadn't been cleaned yet. It was my roommate's turn to clean it. I wanted to say something nasty to her about it, but didn't. Then when she got home that evening, she told me she didn't think it was dirty enough to clean it yet and that she would later this week. Then she asked me if that was okay. I said sure, but I was secretly thinking nasty thoughts about how come she couldn't just clean it and that there were toothpaste splashes on the mirror and faucet. And I wished she would notice that I prefer to keep the toilet seat down.

Exhibit B: I was driving to work yesterday morning, and a big orange truck cut me off. I mean, there were no cars behind me, but he just had to pull out in front of me. I wanted to decapitate him. Set him inside the guillotine and cut him off.

Exhibit C: Another roommate/bathroom situation. This morning, I was looking at my lone toothbrush in the cup on the counter. My last roommate used to share this cup with me. Our toothbrushes would mingle, and every once in a while, I almost used her toothbrush on accident. It was a rather friendly situation. Now my toothbrush lookes wilted and lonely in the cup because the new roommate won't put her toothbrush in there with it.

So these may not be Mussolini-level aspects of tyranny, but it disturbs me that I'm so passive aggressive. I mean, I wish I could just get all this out in the open. Maybe that's why it's on the Internet, but I still hope that my roommate doesn't ever see this. Or the man driving the big, orange truck.

A Flash of Red

Today I'm wearing red pants. They are pretty new, and I love them. They are comfortable and cool in the summer. Plus, I just feel pretty cool (not in a temperature kind of way) wearing them. The problem is you can't wear red pants a lot. I mean, if you get a new favorite pair of jeans, you could probably wear them a couple times that week and no one would even notice. However, people are more apt to remember if you wear red pants. That's the point, at least. You want people to remember what kind of pants you are wearing. That is, if they are red. So today, I was excited because it had been an acceptible length of time since my last wearing of the red pants. However, the day is almost over, so they will have to go back to the end of rotation. Luckily, I didn't wear them to class today, so that makes a difference. That means I could probably move them up in the rotation because only a couple co-workers saw me wearing the red pants today.

Wedded Bliss

Saturday, I went to the Gillette-Wells wedding reception. It was held in the backyard of a house in Alpine. The theme = carnival. A splendid time was had by all, and I wanted to put in some photos taken. These are pictures common to the party.

Sisters of the Bride:

Kylie Capturing It All on Film:

Tongues Red with Cotton Candy Goodness:

The bride and groom sped away on a motorcycle, but because my camera has something of a delay, I missed them. This is what I got:

At Work

So I'm sneaking a little time while at work to write this entry. Between you and me, this has been a very dull day. Work is going so slow. Maybe cause it's Friday afternoon, and I have plans. Nothing exciting. I'm just heading home for the weekend and going to a wedding reception tomorrow. But I am looking forward to seeing my niece. She's just over a year old.

Here's a picture of her:

Okay, so here's two more cause I couldn't decide. (I love to take pictures of her.)

Other plans for this weekend include: driving, cleaning, going to church, reading a book for my folklore class, writing three questions about said book, and sleeping. Yep, an exciting life full of plot.

Last night I played Trivial Pursuit with some friends. I really just like getting slices of pie, lining up the colors, and creating patterns. I like to read the cards, and I like to roll the dice. We also ate cheese and crackers and drank lemonade.

So I have lots of other pictures that I want to upload at some point. I haven't quite figured out how to make them all uniform and line up nicely in rows or anything, though. Haphazardly putting them on here seems kind of amateur. I want this site to look professional above all else. (hehehe... like that's really going to happen.)

Okay, one hour and fifteen minutes till 5:00. I can do that.

I pulled out the tennis racket and tube of balls only to discover that the only court you could play solo on was in use. Why not have more backboards, or whatever they're called? I mean, when you want to hit some tennis balls, you don't always have a friend to hit them back and forth with. And sometimes you really just want to play tennis by yourself. So I ditched them in my back seat and started thinking about what to do for the next little while. I had to get out. Mostly I was just annoyed, and I wanted to get away from things, be silent, hit some tennis balls. I noticed the gate to the Logan cemetery was open, so I found myself entering onto the paved road. The sprinklers had been on again and left puddles running the length of the road and reflecting the trees. They seemed to make a depth deeper than the graves, but I remembered that it was just an illusion. Really, they were flat, standing bodies (albeit small bodies) of water, and if I stomped in them, or even just spit in them, they would shift, and the pure reflection, so clear and real, would be gone.

Not that I'm trying to make this all deep or anything. I could really care less. (Should it be, I couldn't really care less?) I don't even know why or what I'm writing. Mostly, I just want to say "damn" and throw a rock or kick a pinecone, and I don't even know why. It's silly to think it's just because of the night not being how I expected.

I dropped my storytelling class today. I have no plot, nor do I want to come up with one. My life is not a plot with a climax, or even mini-climaxes. It's just one day after another. And all I could think of was the times I went to the cemetery to get away from it all. In Plains, Mt. - watching a couple sit in a truck, eating ice cream cones together (who eats ice cream cones, sitting in a truck in a cemetery). Skipping Art History at the U to visit the SLC cemetery. The camellia -covered cemeteries of South Carolina. And then I thought of different states I had driven through - Massachusettes, Montana, South Carolina. All just roads stretching out ahead. There was no rising action, no point of attack, no climax and no resolution.

But it doesn't mean that nothing happens. In fact, after driving poets to the airport last weekend, my mind has been racing with unwritten poetry. Everything takes on significance, and I think of how that image would line up with the mackerels on ice.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.

A Little Campus Atmosphere

One of my favorite parts of the day is walking across campus. As one administrator once said, there's plenty of parking here, but none close to the buildings, so I park far away and then enjoy the warmth of summer mornings while I walk to work. I also like to pay attention to the people I see and what's going on, so I thought I would write down a couple of my observations.

Today was field day (or something) for the Edith Bowen kids. My usual parking lot is right by the soccer field in which they play, so I frequently walk in rhythm to their screams and laughter. Today, groups were bunched up in different corners of the field, preparing to do relays, spray balls with water, jump through hoops, and other field day games. One group of youngsters was without teacher supervision. There was a fight a-brewing. One boy circling around the other, while the bossy girls in the group were trying to cool them down. Everyone was yelling at the bully to stop. Finally the bully yells back, "EVERYONE STOP YELLING AT ME! I HAVE FEELINGS, TOO, YOU KNOW!!!" Yes, boy who one minute before was about to punch another boy, we all have feelings.

Then I passed by the tennis courts. In the summer, Utah State becomes a resort for the elderly. I don't know what they do here, really. Take classes, educate themselves, and play tennis. Every morning, elderly people are out in short tennis skirts and visors playing tennis. And they're really good. They play doubles, mostly. I watch in awe as I pass and only wish that I could be half as good. Maybe when I am elderly.

The other group frequently seen on campus in the summer are different youth groups from all over. Sometimes they are sports teams, cheerleaders, or Mormons, and they wander around feeling really cool about being on a college campus. I know exactly how they feel because I remember two separate times taking over the BYU campus, once for a youth conference and once for "Especially for Youth," which is another youth conference. I loved living in the dorms with their cute little bunkbeds and closets, desks attached to the wall, and windows looking out at the basketball courts where the boys would play, shirtless. Yes, I was fourteen years old but felt so much older just being on campus. I remember walking around in groups to different classes, scriptures in hand. And here they are still.

As I got closer to Old Main, the men come out to play with their big frisbee. These same four men, in polo shirts and khakis, play with an enormous frisbee that flies from one corner of the quad to the other, every morning almost. I wonder what they think when they see me pass... There goes that girl that gets to work at 10 o'clock every morning, always carrying her purse strapped across her chest and swinging her water bottle and cd case.