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I found these napkins in an old school diary of mine. They were written on by a homelessish man called James who Andy and I met outside of McDonalds three summers ago (we were going to get sundaes). We bought him a cheeseburger I believe. James told us that he was covered in translucent paint which would reveal his true nature at the second coming.Then, with little prompting, he launched into a lengthy diatribe about the apocalypse, and the prediction of the world ending sometime in May 2007 illustrated by pangea, axis angles of various planets and acronymns he’d made up.

Somehow, shooting a bb gun and Thanksgiving just seem to go hand in hand. I surprised myself and Andy by shooting the stem of a Stop sign from a fair distance. I have never heard such a satisfactory Ping before. Andy’s good with any task with the pre-requisite of coordination, so we had an enjoyable time. I went as far as to draw a turkey for my target. We went to our favourite field in Springville. That field has been a host to many a rocket-launch, dry ice bomb, and frolic. It even swallowed our second rocket in it’s grassy undergrowth. A piece of us will always be with you, Springville Field.

I forgot. After we ate and lazed around on Thanksgiving day, Andy and Robbie started racing around the house with Andy’s Airsoft. One thing (shooting each other in the shoulder blades) led to another (taking his BB gun outside) and soon enough we were all chasing around the empty space behind our house waving Roman Candles and the likes.

In Freshman year, Americans would ask me “So do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?” or “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”. I thought that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. I recently learned that Canada has an equivalent of Thanksgiving though, so maybe those questions were more valid than I initially though.

Anyway. This was my fourth Thanksgiving in America, which strikes me as odd because I didn’t think I’d be here so long. I like Thanksgiving though, it’s a holiday dedicated to three of the seven deadly sins: sloth , gluttony, and greed. And you can do without feeling guilty for commercialising an otherwise religious occasion. Joke. It’s just a good holiday because American’s don’t do Half Term, and by early November I think I’m going to die from routine, and need a break. This Thanksgiving, we had Hannah and Robbie over. They brought the most delectable stuffing I have ever tasted and we (well, Nu Skin) provided the turkey. I managed to cook the turkey pretty well (i.e. didn’t burn it), fabricate some delicious gravy courtesy of a tweaked recipe stolen from Elizabeth and all that jazz. I suffer from a serious case of “what? we’re not settling here, so I haven’t decorated/started collecting holiday decorations/tablecloths etc” so we ate at the unfestive kitchen counter. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

Moses had a good time too, come to think of it. After we finished munching, he appeared by Andy’s near-empty plate and started making quick work of the remaining turkey leg. I let my cat on the table to steal food from a plate, don’t judge me. I keep a clean house just fine.

I have a gym pass. I also go to the gym sometimes… wearing trainers I’ve had since I was thirteen. Those 10 year old trainers are still in great condition. That is how un-into the gym I am. I go the gym and try and befriend the treadmill to shine a light at the end of the dark tunnel I put my cardiovascular system in, after consuming a family-size bar of Dairy Milk. I hate every minute of gym-time. I can’t run outside because I get bored too quickly, and running inside (distracted by remedies for my exercise-induced-ADHD, such as watching tv, reading subtitles, AND listening to music all at the same time) is hard because of the people running around me. You know how some people say things like “When I exercise I just let my thoughts flow”, “Running is so therapeutic”. I am not one of those people.

The gymrats and beef-cakes that populate the gym just exacerbate my seething condition of anti-gymness. One time, I forgot my ipod, and while using weight machine things was forced to listen to a conversation behind held by a herd of triangle-upper-body boys. I heard phrases like “gotta beef up” one too many times and decided to go home.
Honestly, one of my most monumental experiences in America was when I realised that some people actually use the phrase “beef up”.

Another time, I got on a treadmill in between two girls who were my height but could probably combine their weights to equal half of mine. They were ‘running’ at 2 or 3mph, their long, shiny ponytails bobbing, sweatless, lipglossed, and attired in skimpy sports bras, matching ’shorts’ and not much else. I heard the phrase “ohmygosh, I like, totally had dressing on my salad today, I’m so naughty” and “ohmygosh, that man totally checked you out”.

Although kind of unrelated, I would also like to reminisce about the time I saw a supposedly attractive girl (every male in a 50m radius was oggling her) attempt to booty-pop to Beyonce “Check up on it” while running on a treadmill. Any dance move, including the running-man funnily enough, is inoperable on a treadmill. As unattainably attractive as this girl thought she was, turns out she was as susceptible to gravity as the rest of the human race. She fell on her face, and was swiped off the treadmill belt in under three seconds. I would have shouted “FAIL!” but I was too busy hating the gym.

Even Anti-Gym Andy has to witness the beefcakes. He text me this morning and said he saw a boy in a BYU bathroom lift up his shirt and admire his stomach muscles in the mirror….. amazing.

Alison Faulkner just posted another marathon running related post. Maybe between that, Hannah Hamill’s running posts, and Carrie Kim’s triathalon training updates, I’ll stop being a cry baby and just get healthy already.

I’d like to think that if anything, I’ve been a consistent person. I mean I’ve had my share of developmental obstacles. There was that time I mistakenly wore a rather flashy v-neck bracelet-length sleeved jumper with an otherwise inoffensive black pencil skirt to a school disco. Or how about the season in which my wardrobe resembled a more decorous version of what was to become (a while later) Avril Lavigne’s signature look (Sans tie. I repeat. SANS TIE). Scrap that, I never wore eyeliner, nor did I ever have hair like a skunk, I just looked more like a ten year old boy then I do now, alright? I also used to dot my i’s with circles which, had I continued to do past Year 4, would have cost me entrance to university or any job since it practically warrants an IQ of <50. Aside from those wince-worthy kinds of things, I believe that I’ve spent the majority of my life being the same person. Since I seem to have skipped the dramatic ‘finding oneself’ thing that teens are hailed to experience, I can only assume to either have the personality and style of a ten year old, or just have been a bit grown-up/boring my entire life. I’m exaggerating, but you know the stories people tell about how they used to be really shy and now they MC for charity events? Or how they used to wear short-sleeved black shirts with a textile pattern of flames licking the bottom and now they work for Christian Loubotin? Or how they got an A in GCSE Maths, but now they can barely count any higher than the numeric value corresponding to their daily ounceage of coke? I don’t have stories like that. I’m still wearing black t-shirts with jeans, I still can’t do physics, and my face is still pretty round. Babyfat, my foot.

I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to smile convincingly on purpose or on demand. I don’t even have one of those unnatural-but-totally-acceptable fake camera smiles (you know, the smile where people peel their lips off their teeth for the duration of a camera flash?) I’ve tried, really, it’s no fun being the only person who’s hassled by a simple picture because one is unsure of ‘how to smile’.

Yeah, you really should see my wedding photos. Hoooooot.

Last night I dreamt that I went to see a film called “The Goodies”. Only I think at some point it changed to “My Goodies” which is the title of a Ciara album I believe. It was a Wes Anderson flick and it took me about 2 Dream Minutes to get bored of the self-aware quirky protagonist(s). I politely excused myself from the top of the car I was sitting on to watch the film so I could leave the theatre. I then went to a nearby shopping centre in the hopes of avoiding getting my feet wet. I watched a 19ft garden worm crawling under what seemed to be demolition remains of a concrete wall and was kind of bothered by it. I then went to Brighton beach where I helped some kid wearing a hat with ear flaps operate the slide. You had to drop 20p into a slot for the slide to fold down and be useable. I then conversed with a girl about ‘gaming’ to which she blithely responded ‘Nintendo?’ and I made fun of her. I woke up thinking that I shouldn’t be so mean to people in my dreams.

On Friday, work took the legal department to see the 1:45pm showing of James Bond. When I arrived at the theatre, I noticed two things: lines of people waiting for a Twilight showing which was still 3 hours away, and a rather large population of pre-teen girls running around clutching bags from Claire’s Accessories. I wasn’t sure why these girls weren’t in school until I heard a mother of one say “I just couldnt see Twilight without her, so I let her take the day off school”. I hope that when that woman’s daughter is illiterate, and bent on having Robert Pattinson bite her in the face, she thinks it was worth it.
Usually, I wouldn’t bash something unless I’d read, listened to, or watched it, but after having read a badly constructed line from the book and seen the posters, I feel wholly justified in claiming Twilight to be a badly written compilation of events occuring in the lives of lusty, anaemic teens. I’d make fun of Stephenie Meyer for selling out, for being an English Major and STILL writing such tripe, but she’s probably cashing a $6M check from MTV right now, so I’ll keep my mouth partially shut on that one.

There needs to be some sort of eligibility test everyone needs to take before they’re eligible to vote.