I have a Confession

The time has come that I confess one of my deepest darkest secrets. I am in love...with Ke$ha. And not in an ironic, sarcastic way. And not the way that I love Rock and Roll High School. where it's ok to love it if you watch it with friends and family so you can laugh at how horrible it is. I genuinely like Ke$ha. I put on her music when I'm studying in the library. I rock out to her alone in the car. I can't get enough of her. Judge me if you want, but she's sleazy and catchy and speaks to my inner slut.

Seriously, how can you not fall in love?

An Analysis of my Social Ineptitude

Picture the average 20-something college kid. Got it? Ok. Now, picture their Friday and Saturday night. What are they doing? Probably "going out." Am I right? Lets say for arguments sake I'm right. Going out is kind of what college kids do. Out can be a number of different places; bars, parties, social events, a concert, a friends house. Out can even be staying in and inviting other people to come to you. One thing going out definitely does not involve is sitting in your bedroom, alone, reading books and watching some-what-less-than-legally downloaded movies on your computer. Which is what I do, pretty much every weekend. You think I exaggerate? I don't. If I am in Salt Lake there is an 96 percent chance that both my Friday and Saturday will consist of me in my room by myself doing not a whole lot. If I'm in Mapleton there is a 78 percent chance that either my Friday or my Saturday will consist of me in my living room, alone, doing not a whole lot. But why do I do these things? I'm young, energetic, mildly charismatic, and can hold my own in most social situations. I have friends, I guess. Why is it that I spend my weekends away from the excitement of the world and the company of others? That my good blog readers is precisely what I plan on working out today in this mildly psycho-analytic blog.

I could make excuses. I could say I have homework to do. Which is true. I always have homework. But I never do it on the weekends. Ever. I does not happen. I could say that I work a lot and am tuckered out by the time I get home. Also true. I do work a lot, and I am usually at least a little tired when I get home. But that's no good either because people who work longer and harder than me still get up and go out on the weekends. I could say that I just enjoy being alone with my thoughts weekend after weekend. This is true too. Once I'm in my PJ's all snuggled up in bed watching some horrible chick flick or catching up on TV, or reading a book I quite enjoy myself. It's relaxing, and gets my mind off things. But to say I prefer it would be a lie. Because there's always that moment. That moment right before I cast off my presentable clothes and crawl into my not-to-see-the-light-of-day clothes where I find myself pausing, hoping, waiting, and wishing that I would get a text saying "Jessica, come out and play! Come be social and engage in age appropriate activities with us!" Then the moment passes, I throw on my leggings and XXL men's long sleeved shirt and I get down to doing nothing.

But Jessica! You just said that every weekend you wish that someone would call you. That means you want to go out! You want to be social! You want to participate in the normal activities of your age group! Why don't you just call some friends and go out and party? That my imaginary mind companion is precisely the problem. I want to go out and do stuff, however I don't want to call people and put together a group to do said stuff. And it's not just laziness that prevents me from picking up the phone. It's fear. Yes you read correctly. I am afraid of calling people and asking them to hang out with me. Does that seem silly? It is, but it is also the unfortunate truth. The problem with me is that I am a pleaser. I hate feeling like I've disappointed people. So when I think about calling friends and asking them to hang out with me I am then bombarded with a thousand nagging thoughts. Thoughts like "what if they already have plans? You know what, they probably already have plans and then they're going to be sad that they have to tell me no and I don't want anyone to be sad." Or "what if they don't have plans but they don't want to hang out with me but feel like that have to. I don't want to be an obligation." Or "what are we going to do, what if what I want to do is lame, what if I can't produce an evening of fun?" All these thoughts and more whiz around my head crippling my desire to call anyone and forcing me into an evening of sweats, sweets, and back episodes of Doctor Who.

So what can I do about this completely irrational fear that any person I call and ask to hang out with me is going to have a miserable time in my company and then hate me forever? I don't know. Seriously, I have no idea. I guess I just need to put on my big girl pants and start calling people and making an effort at being social. But who wants to wear big girl pants when they can wear stretchy pants? I guess the moral of the story is, I have issues, and if you want to hang out with me you should text me or something. Because I definitely won't be texting you.

The Bird

Usually when one returns to one's place of residence after a period of absence, whether one has been visiting one's hometown to enjoy the holiday season or on has been in a psychiatric institution to enjoy mental instability, one expects one's place of residence to be more or less the same. Sure, some dishes will have moved, the fridge will be filled with different sorts of foods, etc. One does not expect to walk into one's living room/kitchen area to see a caged bird sitting on the counter. However that is exactly what happened to me when I walked into my house in Sugarhouse after a period of absence, I'll leave it to you the reader to decide whether I was home for the holidays or recovering from a lapse in my mental faculties. Thats right, there was a bird, more specifically a White Bellied Caiques, in a cage that was occupying a good percentage of the counter space that I use to prepare food on a nightly basis. A living, breathing squawking bird. In a cage. On the counter. In the place that I live. Whaaaaaat?

Needless to say, I was not, and am not (as the owner of the bird has yet to relocate it), ok with the current situation. I don't like birds. On a good day I think that they are creatures, who look alright off in the distance, and who can fly which is pretty neat, as long as they don't get up in my bidness. On a bad day I think birds are dirty, ugly, stupid creatures who exist to fill their bellies with annoying bugs and seeds that need spreading and to fill my belly with their meat. On a really bad day I think that they are Satan's messengers that will one day band together and attack the human race in a relentless and merciless fashion. Thank you Hitchcock/Du Maurier. Why anyone would want to own a bird is beyond me. However, I can accept that there are people out there who don't mind keeping deranged psycho killers in waiting in their home. It's a personal choice, and people have the right to make it. As long as those people don't keep their winged rats ON MY COUNTER! Seriously, it's gross. I believe it is molting right now, and it isn't the neatest of eaters, or defecators. As a consequence I can't use my counter to do anything for fear of getting bird e coli or something. Also it's loud. Every morning as I stumble blearily up the stairs it greets me with a piercing noise that never fails to scare the bejeebers out of me. It has also been shrieking incessantly for the last 45 minutes. The walls are thin. It is annoying. I hate it.

Basically the point of this is to say, I don't like birds. I just don't. I really don't like birds in the place where I'm living. If however there has to be a bird in my place of residence I don't want the bird to be positioned where it renders my counter space unusable, and annoys the hell out of me. I want it in a private room where I don't have to see it, or think about it attacking me in the night. And if things don't change in the very near future either the bird or I is going to meet a very unhappy end.

Sleep is a finicky mistress*

I hereby declare that I have the most delicate sleep cycle ever. Ok maybe not ever, but it's pretty darn sensitive. If I drink caffeine after noon, I don't sleep. If I'm stressed, I don't sleep. If stressful events have just passed and I am filled with relief, I don't sleep. If I take a nap, I don't sleep. The list of things that disturb my slumber go on and on. If any of the afore mentioned things happen, instead of sleep I lie in bed for ages trying to fall asleep whilst my mind zips about at a bafrillion miles an hour. (How British was that sentence?) And then if I do get to sleep it's that weird half sleep where you wake up after every dream and have to repeat the whole process all over again. It is not an enjoyable experience. Even worse is the experience the day after one of these nights of no sleep. See without enough sleep I turn into kind of a bitch. And by kind of a bitch I mean I turn into a super bitch. It's not happy. I basically want to punch everyone in the face, with a chair. I'm grumpy, I'm short, I'm emotional and irrational. It's not a pleasant experience for anyone. And as I'm being a totally horrible person to everyone around me I hate myself, but I can't stop myself. I don't know why I feel the need to share this besides the fact that I had one of those night/days today. And it was awful. And if I hurt anyone reading this with my sharp tones and unpleasant scowls I apologize. It's not you, it's my lack of deep sleep.

*Credit for the title of this post go to Charles Burnett

The Dark Side of the Social Media

In the past few weeks I have discovered, and fallen in love with, Pinterest. Seriously it's as if someone wrapped up a present and said "here Jessica, here is a web sight that will allow you to waste huge amounts of time while feeling like you are wasting absolutely no time. Unwrap this and do what you will." And oh boy have I. I am a pinning fiend. It really is a great. And the best part is that people like my pins, and repin my pins, and make me feel like I am just as cool as I think I am. This morning, however, I discovered that pinterest has a dark side. Let me explain.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm filled with a delightful jubilee of oddities. By that I mean that there are certain things that drive me crazy and make me want to hit something, and other things that just make me want to vomit, but you know, in a fun way. There isn't a good reason behind it, that's just the way it is. So, on pinterest I created a board that would allow me to show the world all the things that bug me. Because if I'm willing to admit my social ineptitudes that makes them ok. One of the peculiar things that bothers me is naked pregnant bellies, especially in picture form. I just think its gross and weird. I mean normally, and not in a"these are art shots" situation you hire a photographer and you get cute. You wear adorable clothing, that covers all the major parts of you. So why, when you have a huge belly and stretch marks do you take off clothes for the photographer? It doesn't not make sense to me. I don't think it's classy and it kinda disturbs me. And of course because I'm me, and don't think people really pay attention to anything I do on any social medium, I find some pictures of naked pregnant bellies and post them with pithy captions like "why do people do this, it's just gross" and "please do us all a favor and cover up your bulging belly." And apparently a bunch of people were not ok with this personal decision. Seriously I woke in the morning with a text from my cousin explaining what was going on, and an apology for having commented. Her exact phrase was "it won't end, they're out for you." I thought she must have been joking, or exaggerating. She was not. A bunch of people I don't know in any way had gotten on and basically ripped me a new one because I had the audacity to not appreciate the beautiful pregnant human form in all it's glory. People called me ignorant and repressed and wrong and all this stuff. It was kind of ridiculous.

This brings me to the first problem that I have with social media. It makes it so easy for people to be rude. It is so much easier to say blunt, unkind things via facebook or twitter than it is to say them face to face. These people who were commenting on my blog didn't know me. They are never going to see me, or meet me, or listen to my thoughts on what makes a sandwich perfect (it's all in the ratios). They are free to declare their opinions on my opinions in any way they choose with no consequences. Facebook is the same way. You can rip someone's status apart just like that, but it would probably be a lot harder to say it to their face. We all do it too. I can get super snarky on facebook and twitter. I blog about things that I would never have the balls to say to someone's face. I guess that's what anonymity does. It makes common courtesy and politeness go out the window, and replaces them with rudeness and unchecked anger. That saddens me. I wish we could go back to a day where you had to sit down and talk to someone about there opinion. For days when you couldn't just blurt out your thoughts, post them, and then be done with them. My new goal is to try not to say anything on a social medium that I wouldn't say in real life. I probably won't succeed, especially not in my blog, but I'm going to try.

I eventually deleted the offensive prego pictures. But I almost didn't. All morning as I was getting ready I kept thinking to myself, "they don't have to like it. It's my pinterest and I'll do what I want. Its my opinion who cares what they think?" Those pictures were all about me. My rights to post what my opinions however I want. If other people don't like it then they don't have to look. So there ha!

This brings me to my second issue with social media. It is makes everyone terribly self-centered. What you post is all about you. I bet most of us don't even pause before posting a crass status, or an embarrassing photo. It's my facebook/twitter/pinterest/blog/etc, I can do what I want. And it's true you can. But is it doing whatever just because you can really the right thing to do? I think that's why I took those pictures down. Do I have every right to find pictures of future dads hugging naked pregnant bellies while the mom's face is nowhere in sight, creepy? I do. And I always will. But maybe it's best that I don't share those feelings with the internet-ing world. Maybe sharing my opinion isn't worth upsetting others. It's easy to share whatever comes into your head, just ask the people who were calling me ignorant without ever having had a conversation with me, because you can and you want to. What's harder is thinking about others before you rip on something others find beautiful, or post mean words about someone's opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to have dissenting opinions. That's healthy and good and makes the world go round. But maybe putting a little thought into what we post instead of just letting the brain juices flow would go a long way.

This post is super long and a little rambly. Sorry. I guess my point is that while social media is awesome, and fun and amusing, it can also be dangerous, and hurtful. And now that I've blogged about it I hope I can keep the bad in mind along with the fun and try not to do more harm then good.

The Pleasure of Your Company

When I was younger I was one of those people who was too cool for a best friend. Back in 3rd and 4th grade people didn't ask you who your boyfriend was, they asked you who your best friend was. And in response to that question I always said, "oh you know, I don't really have a best friend, I just have a group of really good friends." Psh, I was such a liar. Or maybe I wasn't but if I said that now I would be. If someone asks me now who my best friend is, and sometimes even if they don't ask, I say that my best friend is Heather Williams. I'm going to try to not get overly sentimental here, but tis true, Heather is my bff. I've known her since I was four and she is one of the very few people I can be totally myself with. I don't have to worry about what I'm saying and who's going to think I'm a bad person or any of that. See, Heather knows I'm a bad person, and is going to join me at my party in hell. What brings about this sudden gush of feeling towards a person who I very rarely hug? Probably the fact that I spent most of the weekend doing nerdy things with her. Nerdiness binds two people together in a way hugs just can't. Which is probably why we don't hug. It's just weird. We do salute though. Anyway, back to the point. This weekend was awesome. I came home after the Utah-UCLA game (weird for me to watch) and called Heather to inform her that I was home and my mom had purchased HP 7.2. Five minutes, 2 doorbell dings and 2 knocks (sorry Header) later my family, Heather and I were curled up watching the movie, laughing and crying at mostly appropriate times. The fun did not stop there. Sunday we went to the homecoming of the fabulous Allen Warner, which was fun, but not nerdy. Then we watched "The Two Towers" extended version, skipping all the gross boring Sam and Frodo stuff. Yeah, in one weekend we watched both HP and LOTR. And we wonder why we don't have boyfriends. Spending this weekend in nerdom with my bestie made me feel super grateful that I have someone who is willing to accept me for me because she is just like me. I love Heather, and am totally alright with the idea of never marrying and living with her and some pit bulls. So yeah, that's my rave review of Heather. She's fantastic and I wish she would leave the UC bubble and live with me in Salt Lake. It would make my life a lot better. It would also provide me with a social life that I am seriously lacking. It would also also mean that I wouldn't have to get and give all life updates via facebook. It would also also also make me very happy, and eliminate any more rando horrible roommates.

Grand Canyon Adventure+Halloween Adventure

So I have been super lax in updating my blog of late. Something my father told me I needed to fix. So here I am, fixing it. As you may recall from one of recent-ish posts, I decided that I wanted to have more adventures in my life! And the good news is, I HAVE! Yeah for accomplishing what I set out to do! Here now for your enjoyment is a recap of my great adventurous life.

ADVETURE 1: THE GRAND CANYON

Yeah that's right, I went to a national park that isn't in the state

of Utah. What now? Here's the story. My dad, and my alternate parents Jen and Wayne Pullman decided that for UEA they wanted to hike across the Grand Canyon, from the north rim to the south rim, in one day. Are you shaking your head thinking "you crazy fools"? Cuz that's what I did. But they needed another driver, so I said I would drive. And drive I did. 3 day, 20 hours of driving, 5 1/2 of those with no one but my self and the music playing off my iPhone speakers in the car. That part was just as fun as it sounds, not very. A quick side note if any of you ever find yourself thinking, you know what I think I'm going to move to the middle of nowhere Arizona and sell Native American craft items out of a road side stand, reconsider, immediatly. Because that is some bleak bleak land out there. The Grand Canyon itself though was absolutely spectacular. Everyone should see it at least once in their life, if not more. Pictures below.

ADVENTURE 2: Halloween

So Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday. I love it more than Christmas. To me Halloween is a holiday that everyone can enjoy. All you have to do is dress up and have fun. Also there are pumpkins to be carved. So this year I had a pretty great costume. I was the Grapes of Wrath. The picture, will hopefully do it justice. I went out, I had fun. I even won some money at work. But the real fun was making the costue. My mom and I had a really superb time coming up with how we wanted to make the grapes and make me look angry, and gangster. All in all I love halloween.