just some whining about dating, how very original

I just made THEACTUALBESTBEEFSTEWOMG and then I poured it over cheesy polenta and while I ate it I decided on a good time to go get froyo later. I'm basically dating myself. That's what all single people should do, right? Isn't that some hipster quote on a meme-instagram? Memestagram. Idk.

Today I watched a lil' documentary that apparently played in between conference sessions, but I was sleeping during that time, so I didn't see it. It was about marriage/dating/relationships, especially in regards to millennials. Do you see where this is going? DO YOU? Yes. To froyo. But not till 8 o'clock when everyone in Logan is at the HOWL and subsequently not at Yogurtland. Yay.

But really, dating. Why is it this mysterious concept to some (maybe most?) of us...? Examples. I have gotten "asked out" (yes I am putting that in quotes and I have REASONS) via social media two times as of late. While there's nothing wrong with using social media to make connections with people, sometimes I think it becomes a little bit too convenient. It makes it too easy to judge whether we like/don't like someone, based on their profile pic or their tinder bio or the funny things they tweet. And yo, everyone tweets funny stuff. That's all Twitter is. My point is, it's edited. There's an English-y word for this: a simulacrum. It means "a copy of a copy."

The best example I can think of a simulacrum besides social media is Main Street USA in Disneyland. Main Street USA is an imitation, or copy, of this ideal neighborhood which, in fact, does not exist. Social media does the same thing to human beans. We're all trying to show each other we have the "perfect" life, but what does that even mean?! WUT DOES IT MEAN.

Another thing that bugs about dating in this day and age is I'm often wondering, "Isss....this a date? I can't tell." I thought a date was a pretty clearly defined activity, but honestly it's getting harder to tell. When a guy asks me to hang out/come over/eat pizza, and I don't even know him in real life, I think "Okay....umm....wait...but I don't know you. Are you sure you wanna hang with me?" It wouldn't be as weird if they just asked me on a date, flat-out. But this culture of being afraid that the person you go on a date with is either a) your spouse or b) not, makes it easier to say "let's hang out." And so, I am never 100% confident of the boy's intentions, and I balk and want to run away. Balk. What a weird word.

I'm rammmblingggggg. Maybe I need that froyo now. No...must...resist....can't...be...seen...in...public...by...a student...

This documentary talked all about the backwards view that millennials have of dating. They think that they need to spend a certain amount of time with someone before they commit...and then they never actually do the committing. The documentary interviewed dozens of couples, some that have been married a few years, some for 70-something years, and some in between. They all had the same thing in common--commitment. They said that good, strong relationship come after we commit, not before. Duh! But we, being millennials trained to wait for the perfect person before we take a risk, get scared, and then don't do anything. I am soooooooo guilty of this. Like, so guilty. I'm trying to get out of that funk right now. It's easy when I'm literally doing homework from dawn until dusk, and can't ever do anything social (besides going to froyo by myself). Ha. Such sarcasm, very sass.

I want to be content with life right now, and life for me is basically school and making delicious foods for me, myself, and I. But I also don't want to scare myself from being in relationships because of how convenient it is to get out of one (because of social media). You know?

McKenzie, the Dating Connoisseur. (Tombstone Rough Draft Idea #1) (Because I Might Be Dead Before This Is Actually True)

what's the deal with beets?

#ART

Here's something I don't understand:

-beets????

-people eat them????????????

They taste like dirt. I'm not kidding. Straight from the ground. Fresh from the womb...of the earth. Ew. Just think about it. I know that they are really healthy, but gosh, at what cost?! My mom eats them straight from the can. Since I am slowly morphing into her, I may someday do this. Sry to my future children. Vegetables from cans are a major gag-reflex-irritant to McKenzie. Now I'm speaking in third person. Another gag-reflex irritant!

Today was weird. A lot of embarrassing things happened which I probably won't forget, at least not for 6 months (minimum). Here we go.

I went to a luncheon with all of the Lit and Writing professors on campus. It's basically an opportunity to network and talk about poetry and literature and schmooze and eat cookies the size of ur face. I sat next to my mentor without realizing that's who I was sitting by. He emailed me about a month ago to ask if I needed help with anything, but because I get about 100 emails a day and I couldn't think of anything I needed help with at the time (besides not sleeping, lolz), I didn't respond. WhiCH is uncharacteristic of me, but alas, it happened. So I sit by this guy at lunch today and he was like "Well I've met everybody here except for McKenzie. But I'm her mentor..." whomp whomp. SO EMBARRASSING. Cuz then all the other professors were like "Well, well, some mentor YOU are" and he was like "Well I did email her" and I was like "uhhhh yes, he really did, I swear, and I'm gonna email you back!" It's like when you don't text someone back for a really long time and by the time you've formulated a response it's just a moot point. haha MOOT. Whatta weird word.

So now they probably all think I am under qualified for this biznat. But joke's on them because I ALREADY THINK THAT about myself every day. Smiley face emoji.

Woof. Sentence fragments all up in this blog post. Do not tell my students, because I'm harping on them for this very problem in their essays. 

Speaking of this blog + my students. I used an excerpt from ye olde blog in class today and had the students analyze what worked/what didn't about it. I didn't tell them who wrote it or the name of the blog or anything. Anyhow, my first class thought it was hilarious. So I was like "Yeah, it was me! Haha! YOU GUYS THINK I'M FUNNY HAHA I TRICKED YOU INTO LIKING ME!" Well. Then my second class said "It was kind of weird...we didn't get it." So they didn't get to see Spiderman take off his mask. Losers. JK LOVE YOU GUYS. But wait why am I apologizing you'll never read this.

I work at the library once a week in this lil' writing club called the Cache Valley Community Writing Center (holy mouthful of mouthfuls). We just give little presentations to whoever shows up about whatever writing topic suits our fancy, and then they workshop with us for an hour and we help them write stuff. It's like a writing club, but for da city. Tonight a girl came in wanting writing a petition. And I was like, just sitting there staring at the back of this book I had checked out to kill time (there was a lull and nobody to tutor), and one of the tutors started giving me the hairy eyeball, like her eyeball was about to fall out of her face I was sure of it, and I just kind of looked at her like "u ok?" and then RIGHT when I thought her eyeball was for sURE about to loosen itself from her socket, I went, "OH. Oh you want ME to help her write this petition. Ok." It was the most awkward 3 minute silence of my life. I'm sure the poor girl coming for help was thinking "You guys ARE English majors, right? Also do you need some eye drops?" Yeah probably. Wait no I don't. I cry plenty, thanks. 

Other dumb updates but you're reading this post so obviously you care: it has been 14 days since a strange man has catcalled me, today was the first day it was cold all semester and so obviously I chose to wear a skirt (on a no-shave day, no less!), there's a 95% chance I'm going to Thailand this summer, whoops, whatever tan I had in the summer has vaporized right along with my desire to grade 40 papers. 

this is what 1000% done looks like

and this.

Blogger has lots its marbles and it won't let me line up the pics side by side so you're just gonna have to deal with the fact that this blog is hereby no longer AESTHETICALLY PLEASING. dangit. 

the proper way to fill holes

No I am not talking about grouting tile. No way in he*k am I gonna talk about that on this blog. Do I look like I know anything about home improvement? No. Just take out the "me" from "home" and boom, you'll get what this blog is about. ho improvement....

*silence*

Okay. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I wrote this last night when I was feeling very emo. So watch out. Grab yo kleenex or skip this one if you wanted to laugh. Srryyy I can't be funny alwayz.

***

Why do I fight against being broken open by hard things? Or against faith? Why don't I ask for things that are so clearly in my heart? Why don't I try courage and, like DO the things I know will make me a better person? And not just because God is asking these things of me but because He is all-knowing and He knows my future (all things are present to Him). So of course he's going to ask me to do things that are uncomfortable or weird or hard or don't make sense to me. Because I can't see the whole picture. I don't have that ability because I'm mortal. Whoops. So yeah. I should just trust Him and in Him. And stop dragging my feet. I need to stop dragging them. I can't get anywhere.

I am tired of waiting, and I think waiting is tired of me waiting for it too. I’m sitting by this subway line as it passes me by, and every time the doors open, I want to get on, I would like to leave this platform right now but I stay there, and wait for the next train, and so it goes.

I am tired of filling these holes with things that don’t stick. If I was a floor made of tiles, then I wouldn’t be grouted. Not even close. Because the things that I am using to try and fill up all the gaps, they aren’t working. Things including but not limited to:

• boys
• boys texting back
• boys giving me any attention at all
• music
• tv shows
• driving around late at night by myself and worrying about the future
• social media, likes, follows, reblogs, etc
• mirrors (literal and not-so-literal)

I don’t know what happened, but somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was. This isn’t a one-time thing. It’s recurring. It’s a recurring nightmare and it’s been (literally) keeping me up at night. I’m finally on sleeping pills because the Sunday night would come around, every seven days, that son of a gun, so dang reliable, when you pull the trigger out goes the bullet, and every time I would lie down to rest and then came the thoughts. Thoughts like you are not good enough to be here, you haven’t gotten caught up on a lot of homework assignments, you should be managing your time better, you spend a lot of your time alone these days, you’ll probably be alone for a long time, school is the most important thing in your life, why can’t you figure out how to date guys? why don’t guys ever want to date you? is something wrong with you? you’d probably be a catch! but...you’re alone. you’re still alone but you have school at least. your family and friends aren’t here but you are, for some reason you are here and it’s driving you insane, why, why here? remember when you’d drive home late at night and cry because you felt too much?

I have decided to be ballsier, and I mean that in every aspect of life. I can’t be waiting for this train anymore, this perfect, proverbial, temperature-controlled subway car to take me to the perfect place away from here. I am going to get on the next time it stops. The next time the door opens I am leaving this platform because yesterday, today, tomorrow, it’s all the same to the one who’s in charge. He’s in charge of me. He cares about me. Tonight I knelt down and I laid my head on the bed like a child lays in its mother’s lap. And I cried out. I said, “What do you want? What do you want?” And He answered back, very clearly, very quietly, but quickly: “What do you want?”

Things that would probably fill up these holes:

• the scriptures
• praying more
• being in the temple
• asking for the things I want the most but cannot ask out of fear, or something else gnawing at me--having faith

Some people get in car accidents. They barely survive, and then they get prayed back to life. Miracles. And it wasn’t so much to prove that they could do it, but that God could work miracles. He wants us to pray for those things. Not all of us get in car accidents. Some of us get in life accidents. Like depression or anxiety or crushing inadequacy or loneliness or searing doubt, the kind that burns you so badly you’re not sure you’ll come out the other end whole again. But that’s the whole point. Faith is hard. It kind of turns you inside out. It shakes things up in your life a little bit, usually a lot. It doesn’t make sense all the time, because it has a lot do with “future you,” the person you’re working towards, the person Heavenly Father sees and is wanting for you. “Yeah, I know you want this, but what’s coming next is best.” See, for me, I think he just wants me to try something. Get on the train sometime. If it’s not right for you, get off at the next station. We’ll get there.

I am tired of these holes. I am tired of being a sponge, I am not meant to be porous, I have too many tears coming out of me to sustain this way of life. There is only one fix for this.

2 Nephi 31:21