"what is that kid there for?"
"who, him? oh, he's been there my whole life."
-my norwegian brother, kim, after i asked him about a child's picture on the BOTTOM of a can of liver.

eyes ache but i'm still awake. even writing rhymes and watching ghost hunter with 4 teenage boys.

confession: i have not seen one episode of gossip girl since saturday night. i am missing the drama all of the time.

more time to read good books though, like the Bible or things by jane austen. more time to balance checkbooks, and clean bedrooms. more time to find the reason for my headaches (which was a bunch of turpentine soaked newspapers). more time to play guitar. more time to cough up everything inside of me and smile because, hey, things could be worse, and because, hey, it's almost Christmas.

"This is war like you ain't seen.
This winter's long, it's cold and mean.
With hangdog hearts we stood condemned,
But the tide turns now at Bethlehem.

This is war and born tonight,
The Word as flesh, the Lord of Light,
The Son of God, the low-born king;
Who demons fear, of whom angels sing.

This is war on sin and death;
The dark will take it's final breath.
It shakes the earth, confounds all plans;
The mystery of God as man."
-Dustin Kensrue. Gives me the chills.

(a long time ago i always used to read books about people on drugs or in rehab. now i just clean my room and can't breathe very well. what happened to the exciting life? i bet the library did, because i am on their bad side again. we are always letting each other down, salt lake county and i.)

...reply to you and say that yes, i am feeling awful. that my body is 101 degrees. sit on a leather couch and shakeandshake cause it is cold inside of a fever. chicken noodle soup and dinner rolls. bottles of pills that all start to blend together. i don't feel anything anymore.

so we talk, about childhood and working. which leads me back to square one: going to bed late and waking up with a bad cough. back to pride and prejudice. back to sore stomach muscles. but i guess i felt better for that little while.

mr darcy on my mind.

fever dream

it was a man in a woman's body, or possibly a woman in a man suit. man in a woman suit? woman with a man's voice? bigmixedupconfusionlatenightshopping. groceries needed always. alfredo in a jar and i know i could do so much better than that. aimee mann at midnight. walk upstairs and you ask how i am feeling.

mr darcy always on my mind.

"a man down on earth needs our help."
"is he sick?"
"no, even worse: he's discouraged."
-it's a wonderful life.

confession: today at work i lied to about 30 old men and told them i was doing good, when really i felt like i was going to pass out. does that make me a terrible person?

a sign that i am really losing my brain (or just getting really sick): tonight, when i got home from work, i thought, 'man, i can't wait to get out of my work clothes'. then, after a good half-hour of walking around i realized that my work clothes were actually pajamas because my boss made me wear them. i wish this headache and sore throat would just disappear into wyoming or something. they can infect the zero people that live there.

i guess i am still happy though. especially i am happy about the weekend, which oddly started and ended with me working at the same store. having two jobs is so strange because of the different routines that you start to mix. but that is the life of a poor college student, i bet, and i sure can't give up my chipotle burritos.

before i had this sickness living inside me though, i got to go down to cutesie little provo. i guess in being honest provo really isn't that cute. it looks a lot to me like cigarettes, drunkeness, and poor air quality, but it is a little part of home. i probably will marry someone who smells like cigarettes, because that smell is comfortable and will always remind me of some neat parts of life. and some horrible ones, too, but i'll take what i can get. anyways, it was nice to drive down with my dad and see some friends of mine. i got to meet my new brother, who is really just a foreign exchange student that lives my life (in my room, even). my parents are always heros of mine and they are also always willing to take in a person that needs a home. so i have a sixteen year old boy sleeping in my old bed. philip and i watched some lethal weapon with him and then took him to wendys. we are teaching him how to be american, step-by-step. obviously america is car chases that involve riding a TABLE down the freeway and eating after eleven pm.

yup, i bet being american involves shooting a gun too, and waiting in line for things. that is why i woke up at seven am on a saturday to meet up with people at cabela's. they had even been waiting since six-thirty in a line of people, in the snow. that store always makes me feel like i don't fit in anywhere in america. no one dresses like me, and, darn it, their kids do NOT mind. i had fun looking at guns though, and fish, and this odd statue that looks like george bush (and talks). we fit four people in the back of my ford, and then headed to nowhere, utah to shoot guns at things. all in all, it was a pretty neat experience. kim got to try something new, and so did i. there is something really great about shooting a shotgun, or a .22, or even a pistol. probably it would have been better if there was no snow involved, cause there was sure a lot of it, and i was cold for always that night, but i got to hang out outside of noisy cities and corporate america with some of my favorite people. praise Jesus for that.

saturday night i got to go to church and hang out with a good, good friend of mine. we drove on the freeway complaining and bought a bunch of candy. he even cooked me some corn dogs. there is a wonderful friendship. some strange part of me gets along with boys the best, and even dresses like them sometimes. or maybe they dress like me, i've never been able to tell.

there is most of it, except sunday, when i got to play with cute cute little kids and wrap Christmas presents. out of all my days, i was clearly the most motherly today. i even made a pot of soup and did the dishes at someone else's house. oh dear.

"I was home entertaining guests, when I fell off the chair and
cracked open my head. Bees flew out, and they flew up their
skirts because they wanted to travel the world."
-The National

I have been eating these cute little packs of japanese
gum all of the time, but i don't think anyone told the
japanese that putting sugar in their gum was bad for
teeth.  if i get cavities, i am going to blame the
whole nation of japan.  i would even take a subaru
as payment.

i think small pieces of my brain are being cut out in my sleep and being replaced with corporate america. i am losing whole entire thoughts in the process of thinking them. the other night i drove halfway to class and then couldn't figure out where i was going. i literally thought i was driving around to waste gas. waste gas, go to chevron, buy more gas. use your chase visa and spend spend spend, evenson. get on it.

this corporate america thing probably describes why i always want burgers lately, too. i never even cared about them in my entire life, and now i can't resist the allure of a dirty BK. burgers. red meat. fast. FOOD. dollar menu. dr. pepper. gossip girl. sharpie brand permanent marker. nightly news. excedrin migraine. chocolate syrup. levi jeans. ge brand microwave. budweiser (heaven knows your desperate if you choose bud light). macbook pro. don't these words know they are going to burn one day?

but until then, here i am, in my gap sweatshirt, typing on my dell, putting on blistex fruit smoothie chapstick, and listening to my apple brand ipod. dell, blistex, and apple: you don't define me. i just thought you should know that, regardless of america telling you that you do.


what really defines me is this. i love Jesus, and he loves me back. i'm given grace, forever and for the moment. i am part of a family that is a couple billion strong.

also, i write narratives. i worry about my headaches sometimes. i don't have a sleeping pattern. sometimes i play the piano. i like to camp mainly to look up at the stars (and NOT to get leeches on my arms). my room usually is a mess but i am a tennessee fan, so i am used to disappointment. i have never shot a real gun (YET). the way to my heart is to love Jesus and also wear nice jeans. i buy too many jackets, and too much eyeshadow, and way too much junk food. i am in love with 1960's bob dylan and would marry him with the invention of a time machine. two of my best friends are boys. i can't really bowl much over a 130, but i like to try. someone out there knows how to make me smile real good. i am into zombie movies occasionally. i like bobbleheads. i drink a lot of coffee. my hair is finally growing long. i've had the same person stuck in my head for twoyearsstraight and it's oddly okay. those things seem to characterize me a little better than the gap could.

Don't tell everybody at the table about your dreams,
They're too amazing, it'll melt their minds,
Take 'em to Hollywood, cut out the good parts,
Become millionaires.
-The National

it is three degrees outside. i did not sign up to live in siberia.

spotted: an old black man, wearing fur boots with track pants. he must have been listening to nelly.

also spotted: a greaser, complete with gold earring, leather jacket, white t-shirt, slicked back hair, a toothpick, and an accent. i promise i am not making him up. i am also not making up the man that wore short shorts, a graphic shirt, and winter boots. like they would really help you keep warm in that situation.


these people are a day in the life for me (and this day was sans public transportation). what does that say about me?

"i will seek you with all my heart, and i'll be found by you. you will bring me home."
that is the very thought that gives me comfort all the time.

well, i am up and running nice and early today, sans any coffee. ask me how i feel about that in an hour, and i'll probably want to beat you up.

I had a love affair with the interstate this weekend. it tried to talk me into driving clear down to vegas, but i told it that i loved utah too much. oddly, i realized afterwards that it was entirely true. the thing about the interstate that attracted me to it was that it makes you realize things: that twenty minutes could be twenty seconds, good friends are the kind that don't leave your brain, and that things will mostly always be alright. even if it is snowing. even if your hair is too short and notcurlyenough and there is a mess inside of your bedroom.

the weekend tried to steal my heart, too, but mainly it just made me tired. it took me down to provo, to remind me of the good times. instead, i fought back tears while a father figure, a friend, a leader, and a hero of mine announced to those in the dark that he has cancer. my heart broke all over again, remembering that it was real life. my God, thankfully, is huge, and he has something inside of this. i know it, and so does this incredible man. when i was ten, he let me come over all of the time, and when i became a teenager he took us on life-changing colorado trips. when he moved to provo, he somehow convinced my parents to come along, and when i moved to salt lake, he kept caring about me. he is the strongest man i have ever met, and i am blessed to call him a hero of mine. God is challenging us all through this. it is rocking us to the core, but ultimately that there is VICTORY in whatever happens.

that leaves last night, shopping and eating lotsofmeat and going to church, and today, sitting in a hot tub and watching someone make a ring. this is a crazy life. maybe i will let the interstate tempt me into going somewhere, but i can't tell it that my tank is running on empty again.


http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/stevemcinroy/
what a beautiful thing there is going there.

"My parents are probably getting a foreign exchange student, because the family he is with couldn't keep him."
"That sounds like the way that we got most of our dogs!"
-Phil Hahn, last night in a too warm living room.

--the thing about college is that there are quite a few men with beards. i always did want to fall in love with a man with a beard, but not one that thinks he is a genius, or one that is 40. those seem to be the only two options around here. i guess that instead i will fall for chuck bass, since i am watching him always anyways (evenduringalecture). he will be a complete ass for a week, but then everything will work out and he will pretend to be charming by buying me a watch. that is how it goes in this world of high fashion and trust funds.

--i am shaking all the time because of the grande americano i drank this morning to stay awake. it was the americano that caused me to try and start my car with a house key, i bet. the americano also caused me to laugh out loud over and over on trax. that probably was because of npr, too. they had a wrestler as their special guest, and he had starred in a succession of movies where he beat people up for kidnapping his girlfriend. now there is also a life.

--last night, as i was driving through sandy, i watched ten undercover cops that were actually US marshalls speed past me. living in salt lake has showed me more police drama than ever before. i've watched a man drive away from the cops, i've seen four men getting arrested, and i've managed to never get pulled over. i guess at least one of those things is good. i've also started to really appreciate driving anywhere at midnight. it's always gorgeous around then.

--sometimes i love standing around a warm kitchen and talking the very most. whether it is about my crazy family or the public in general, that feels like a huge part of home to me. i sometimes miss it when i leave, even if i know that it is just fifteen minutes away (and that i live there on the weekends as well). i'm blessed to know the people that i know, and i can't stop smiling about it all the time.

it's 1 am, and all i want to do is watch one more episode of gossip girl.

i watched him throw handfuls of popcorn to the dogs. some got caught, and some didn't. we stood there, the amount of us dwindling, until it was time to go home. coincidentally, that felt more like home than just about anywhere else.