Where I Went, And What Happened To Me When I Got There (in other words, every blog post ever written by anybody)

somebody recently told me I look Asian and asked me if I had Asian ancestry..???

I went to a concerto (are you guys bored of hearing about all the shows I go to because I'm not bored). It was in a sketchmeister part of town, like most good concerts are. We drove past a group of hobos, which made me mega-depressed and a little bit scared because I used to live in Mexico so I trained myself to cross the street whenever I saw vagabundos because they were almost always drunk and in a following-mood. SO I said that and Trent goes, "If I was a bum, I would have the most pimpin' shopping cart. Totally hipster." And then all was well in Zion Trent's truck.

yay concerts. we stood in the front row and I photobombed some 15 year olds. Man I wish I had a copy of that snapchat. :''(

Trent (I honestly can't think of a caption but if you know him I think his name will suffice)

I went to a wedding reception. Upon arriving, I was immediately set up with a boy who showed up a few minutes later. Judging by the amount of stares he threw in my direction, I deduced he had also been informed about me. OOF. So then I left my phone on the other side of the table for 10 measly minutes, and some other guy who shall not be named (mostly because I don't know his name) stole my phone and took selfies with it. I call them "The Subtle Sandwich Selfies" now. He was apparently trying to get a picture of the boy behind him, who was my almost-husband. This almost-husband saw these weird pics of himself on a Strange Girl's Phone (that's me). 

Almost-husbands are kind of rare these days. I dunno what I'd blog about without them, though. He gave me a very strange look like, "Yo, why didn't you just talk to my face instead of employing this boy to get some not-so-subtle pictures of me?" Spoiler alert: I did not leave this reception with anybody's phone number except the Self-Help Hotline's (which also happens to be the number for Taco Time).

There's 5 pictures like this on my phone. Should I frame them? 

I went to the new Bruges Waffle place on Center Street. And now we interrupt this broadcast to ruminate briefly on the hell-hole that is Center Street.

• Center Street has no left turn lanes. But what do people do when they have to turn left? They awkwardly get in the middle of the road past the median, where pedestrians sometimes decide to use nonexistent crosswalks. #bless
• The speed limit is 15 MPH, which is the same speed limit in residential areas AROUND SUPER CURVY CURVES IN THE ROAD. Ok?
• Center Street is flanked with parking, and also parking right down the middle, so good luck maneuvering your large vehicle down that road. Ha. Haha! And you thought it was for driving!
• Center Street contains almost all the good restaurants in Provo, hence why I go there. Also, Pioneer Book. But I prefer to bike there so I can maintain my Hipster title. You know?

So I'm sitting on Center Street right in front of Gloria's Italian Restaurant (apparently it is very tasty). Gloria's is muy popular and so there were lots of witnesses to this awful crime. The crime that shall be known as #JERRYWAYNE forevermore.

He was in a huge truck, he backed right into Falcor, Caitlyn banged on her window cuz she was about to get crushed, I honked my horn that I found out doesn't work in that moment (I mean), his truck was actually lifted up by the force of my car because my car is really a tank, and I think I started laughing hysterically as soon as he realized he was crushing the bones of my car and almost our bodies, and did not stop laughing hysterically until my waffle sandwich had been consumed 30 minutes later.

P.S. the waffle sandwich was mediocre and not worth the 8 dollars. But I bet the dessert waffles are rockballs awesome.

I rode my bike to campus, which was beauteous of course because when is campus not? Hint: when it is covered in ice, that's when. As I rode my bike there, I crossed the street 1,356 times and almost got run over 1,356 times. One guy even flipped me off. It was glorious. I gave him my very best muppet face and rode away. I think he and Regina George will be very happy together.

Oh yeah! And I went camping.

 ...And turned my Tinder back on for a couple days. It was worth it.

I get why raisins are made in California now

On Saturday I was at the beach. It was incredibly hawt. I spell it like that because 1, I have a college degree and therefore I'm allowed to sound like I don't, and 2, there was a surfing competition going on and, well....it was hawt. Ya dig?

I was foolish and didn't wear a swimsuit because I wasn't planning on swimming. Look. I grew up going to the Oregon coast every summer, and nobody swims in that water unless they're wearing a full body wetsuit. But in California, people lay out on the sand and get skin cancer??? With swimsuits on. They never actually get in the water. This is a thing! Well, I got a nice sprinkle of freckles on my face and legs, and saw some dolphins, which reminded me to shave my legs later, and saw some cool surfing tricks all while getting shriveled up by the sun. Conclusion: California is an excellent place to turn grapes into raisins (it's not a metaphor).

Here is what it's like to road trip with my younger siblings. The scene is thus: we're trapped in an enclosed space for 10 hours. Ellie has to empty her bladder every hour or so. They need snacks every 20 minutes. I bring all my library books and a box of Dramamine. We play the license plate game for a measly 10 minutes until one of them cheats and the whole game goes down the tubes.

I started to write this in my phone somewhere between Nevada and California, and welp. That's all I have to say. WELP.

Bad Ideas I Have Executed & Then Immediately Regretted Thereafter

1. Eating no less than four (that's right, FOUR) whole wheat muffins on a road trip to California [this very road trip, as it turns out], far from any rest stop.
2. Jumping off of my best friend's trampoline onto a "tower" of silky pillows because I thought it would be like a waterless slip-n-slide. That was the 14th sprained ankle of my childhood and also the worst. My mother made me take crutches to church, which was just about the most humiliating thing for a 12-year-old girl. Don't forget the orthopedic socks. Er...sock. It was all wrapped up in a nice Single 5ever Package. Although nowadays if I had crutches, I'd milk it. As I mentioned in my last post, I don't get embarrassed easily.
3. Creating a Spanglish email address for myself in 10th grade which would follow me into oblivion, or at least the age of 25. My dad likes to pronounce it incredibly poorly, just so I know how foolish I look to universities and banks. "Pelly-Ree-Jo-Jo-Runner." To be clear, I'm not a male redhead and I can hardly call myself a runner. /end
4. Stalking a friend of a friend of a friend (bless the internet for giving me this capability) and then accidentally liking one of his pictures which was 58 weeks old. The fear I have of repeating this mistake is only equal to the fear I have when I'm locked out of my apartment, my bladder is full, and my keys are buried at the bottom of my purse. These fears are real and are not to be challenged.
5. Listening to the song "Taxi Driver" at least 50 times in a row so I could memorize the lyrics and impress my friends at a birthday party I was going to (you don't have to listen to it, guyz, but really, the entire song is made up of band names, so that's cool). I actually walked around the block where the party was being held like 5 times, the song on heavy rotation, until I'd burned all the words into my brain. I mean, I know the lyrics now and that's great but I can't add that to my resume. And the only memorable thing about that birthday party was the cake made of doughnuts. Bless it. 

Things we said to each other while on this trippity-trip ("we" mostly meaning Ellie):

Ellie spilled a bunch of pencil shavings all over her seat, and said to my bro: "Don't talk to me now, I'm in crisis!"

My dad was channel surfing in our motel the first night and kept landing on novelas (Spanish soap operas). He paused on an especially flamboyant one and my mom said "I can feel a swear coming on..."

We drove through a wicked rainstorm between St. George and Arizona. Most people were pulled over with their hazard lights on, but my dad kept plowing through. The lightning and thunder were so intense that at one point Ellie said "Can we please turn on a movie?! When I'm doing something other than lightning I'm like 'YAYY!'" Lightning is a verb now, you animals.

My parents were discussing where the nearest Costco was so they could get gas. Ellie chimed in from the backseat: "Hey! Hey guys we should go to Costco and get smoothies. I mean since you guys are talking about Costco."

Caleb started to spit for no reason. Well, I guess he's a 12-year-old boy, so that's reason enough. Mom said "Cal why are you spitting?" {silence} "NO SPITTING!" Familiezzzz.

Ellie, to my mother: "Mom, just put some chips in this cap." {As she extends her upside down baseball hat to my mom} 

"No. I'm not going to put food in something you'll put on your head later."

But everyone knows Ellie rarely wears hats. She basically uses them for storage purposes, the same way she's used anything with a concave opening since the age of two. 

Ellie, on the way home (we were all on our last legs, mentally, if you know what I mean): "Can we just throw Caleb out the window?" 

But really. We did have a good time. Lest you think the entire trip was like that. Just don't put us in a car for very long or we'll start muttering death threats and throwing Cheez-Its (the second thing actually did happen).