Deleted

I was looking for an old email tonight and happened upon a chain of messages from 2004 debating who is the greatest superhero of all time. I would like to note that both the instigator of the conversation and one of the loudest voices were at the time attending Harvard Law and getting an PhD at MIT respectively. It was a lively discourse. I read my entry into the discussion and thought it was too funny not to post. This was pre-Christian Bale Batman movies but I think that makes my case even stronger. I guess this is what I did before I blogged ; )

I would like to make a case for Batman vs.Superman by bringing us all
back to high school.

Superman is the easy crush. He is the captain of the football team, he
is the Student Body President. He looks good in a tux, he will take
you to the Prom in a limousine (and probably drink too much and try to
get you to stay in a hotel room but that is neither here nor there).
He is six pack abs and straight white teeth. All the girls have a
thing for Superman. He is a good guy, your mom will love him, your
friends will be jealous of you, your life will be predictably
protected. He'll have a good job, the kids will go to summer camp and
get braces and scholarships to the U. Superman is not hard to figure
out. Sure his beginnings were a little sketchy but then he was raised
in a loving home by good people. Superman is cool, and it's easy for
him.

Batman however. You aren't sure what to make of him. He's probably in
your art class. Or he has a band. Or he hangs out in the South Hall
and doesn't make it to class very often. But he's smart. And he's
creative. And he'll draw a picture of you that doesn't just look like
you, it figures you out. And your friends will say "Gross! you can't
like him!!!". And your parents will probably ban him from your house.
But he'll figure out how to get to you. He'll give you your first
copy of Franny and Zooey. He is dark, intense, brooding. He witnessed
his parent's murder for crying out loud. So you are taking a chance
with this guy. He's an underdog to say the least. But you think that
somehow, you will be able to figure him out, solve his puzzle, heal
him. And that is very, very attractive.

I guess I'll let you decide who I'm leaning towards here but I think
I'd rather be Kim Basinger than Margot Kidder.

Boost

Apparently it's brag about who I know week. My good friend Dave, who is responsible for finally getting me into The Smith's at the tender age of 28, is one of those actors out there in Hollywood. It's pretty fun when you are catching up on shows on Hulu and you see his mug spooning with a lawyer. See below if you are confused.

Boost Mobile Commercial Link

Small World

I didn't watch the Oscars this year because frankly, I get to eye rolly by the end of that show with how self-important the movie industry is. Hey guys, film is great, I'll even give you that film is important. But you are all very very well compensated to do a really fun job so...you know, perspective. Not curing cancer or anything.

But. I was pretty excited for Kathryn Bigelow to get that Best Director award. Kind of funny that it's 2010 and it's the first time a woman has ever won it eh?

Anyway, my mom sent this yearbook photos over today-guess who she sat by in English class? Click on the photos below and see if you can find a face that looks kinda like mine on the first page and a famous name on the second page.

Pretty cool.

Birthday

Replikate turned four on Saturday.

I have posted 832 times here. I'm not sure I've been this consistent at anything in my life. Being bossy maybe?

I was actually a really good journal writer prior to writing the blog. I have journals that stretch back to the very first one I got for my eighth birthday. For the most part they are a record of every boy who didn't like me back but there are some flashes of good in them. I feel lucky to have written that much of life down, even if it's often too focused on that one area. I have journals from my mission and journals I wrote while my parents were getting divorced. Journals that run from hating college to really loving it and journals about all my treks across the country.

I stopped writing when I realized that the blog was probably a more real version of me. Isn't that funny? I opened it up to the public and I think I'm more honest here then I was when it was for my eyes only. I don't write about specific boy situations here but looking back, I know who the subtle reference I do make belong to and it helps me remember mistakes I don't need to make again. i know I enjoy the process of writing a post more then I enjoyed just free writing in my journal. I think a lot more about what I want to write here and I feel a certain amount of pressure for it to be reasonably entertaining.

I wasn't sure what I wanted this to be when I started. My friends Betsy and Rebecca had just started a now defunct blog called The New Awesome that detailed their terribly chic lives in San Francisco. At first I hoped Replikate would be as spicy but as I progressed I realized what I wanted to do was just write. I.love.to.write. It's one thing in my life that I never doubt. I know I'm pretty darn good at it, and even if I'm not, enough people humor me that I'm going to keep doing it.

So thanks Replikate readers, I would write this thing if no one ever looked at it and I think it would still be valuable, but over the years that are lots of you I've come to know a little bit and whose opinions I love to hear. I appreciate that you spend a few minutes with me here-our lives are all so busy and it means a lot that anyone bothers to stop by at all. Replikate has been one delightfully consistent thing where I know Mike from Texas is still reading whether I'm in Boston or HB or COS.

Life is returning to some kind of normal here now that the Paralympic Processing is over. I spent a lovely night last night organizing my closet and moving my Oly wardrobe to the back. It's been an exciting few months but I'm ready to get back to a regular workout schedule and try to make a life in this new little city I live in. And subjecting you all to it too ; )

Cooked

It's been an unreal six weeks. We sent the last of the Paralympians off to Vancouver today. Amazing, amazing people.

The Sled Hockey boys made me take this picture I promise.

Right Now

HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE!!!

Stop everything!!

A very looooooooooong awaited Broken Social Scene record comes out May 4th and I will actually be visiting a CD shop to get my hot little copy.

But today! My smart and cool friend Chanelle gave a Facebook heads up that one of the tracks from the album is out and you can hear it here.

I have a near crazy love for Broken Social Scene. If you want to know what the world feels like to me, listen to five or six BSS songs and you'll get it. As the reviewer says, they are "...expansive, uplifting, dramatic, melodic".

I discovered these guys as my first time in Huntington Beach was winding down and they will just always remind me of warm sand and funny boys and stolen kisses and the feeling that something big is just about to happen with no clue what it might be.

Show Me State

For some reason when I'm naming artists I love, I always forget Griffin House. I can't think of a song of his that I don't just love. And honestly, he has one called "The Guy That Says Goodbye to You is Out of His Mind", and it starts with the lyric, "you don't have to change a thing about you babe, I'm telling you from where I sit you're one of a kind" sooo...what's not to love?

Anyway, my iTunes is doing a good job recently of sensing what I want to hear. Last night I got "Fever Dream" by Iron and Wine, a song that makes my heart skip as much now as it did when it leapt out at me live at a little club in Rhode Island many years ago. Today I got a stellar Griffin House track I hadn't heard in awhile called "Show Me Yourself". It has hands down one of my favorite lines of any song ever

I understand if your heart has been won, but I'd still like to know if I'm still in the game.

Somehow he writes these kind of melodramatic lyrics but because of the melodies and the way he sings them, they just come across as crazy romantic and not weepy emo.

Anyway, listen for yourself, it's a great song, his voice is sexy, and it will kind of make you feel the girl in a John Cusack movie.

Show Me Yourself - Griffin Hou...

Man vs. Wild

Oh hey so I leave for Denver tomorrow to do that big thing I just did in Vancouver all over again for the Paralympic team. I should be packing. Instead I am blogging. Obviously. Because if I had a tag for "doing other things when I should be packing", there would be approximately 1000 entries.

But whatever, I have things to say.

It's a pretty big part of my belief system that our bodies and our souls are intertwined. It's part of the reason that I'm so passionate about being active even though I do not have an ounce of athletic talent in my whole body. My life rolls along better when I make sure I am getting in a good sweat relatively often.

Too often I spend those sweaty hours at a gym, on a treadmill or a stairmaster. I am grateful for those things and on a cold week night when it's dark and snowy, they are life savers for sure. But yesterday I had too much on my mind to even fathom the slight pointlessness I feel logging another mile staring at the TV in the workout room. So I put on the little ice spikes I finally bought and am pretty sure mean I'm embracing my Coloradan status (still sounds so funny though-when did I move to Colorado??) and headed over to face the Incline by myself. I've been at sea level for a few weeks and I could feel every single inch.

It's been a funny 10 days since I got back from the Games and my head has been an absolute mess trying to come back to reality, but also gear up for the Paralympics, sort through what did and didn't work in Vancouver while trying to mesh with a brand new staff, and also making sense of some personal stuff. So sleeping has been tough and I've been a little edgy.

As I got about halfway up the incline, and I was already drenched in sweat and feeling like my lungs would probably never forgive me, all of the sudden I just started feeling so peaceful about pretty much everything I was worried about. I felt like my crazy heart was just forcing all the concerns to seep right out of me. The combination of the clean air and the mind-boggling views of Southern Colorado and forcing myself to do something really hard made me feel like there really isn't anything I can't tackle.

I have said this before-when I trained for my marathon it cleared away six months of fear and doubt about my ability to make my life in California work. My mind just seems to work better when my body is pushing itself. The sleep cycle app on my iPhone says I got more deep sleep last night then I have in a week.

I'm ready for another crazy week of athletes and chaos and not enough sleep and too many rice crispie treat breakfasts.

Neil Young performed at Closing Ceremonies tonight and sang one of his loveliest songs. It seemed so crazy appropriate for both the end of the Games and the direction I want my life to go. Enjoy.

Back to the Beach

The night before I left for Vancouver I was doing my traditional best to avoid packing. I chatted online with some friends, took a new and complicated Facebook profile photo, my friend Katie brought by an adorable care package so I visited with her for a bit, and then I spent some time on iTunes researching all the new releases my friend Paul mentioned in a status update. Patty Griffin had a new album out that week which is sublime, but he also mentioned a band I didn't know called Beach House. I checked them out and immediately fell deeply in love. They are from Baltimore, a city that has more charm than "The Wire" would lead you to believe and they promptly became my Olympic soundtrack.

I really like the entire Teen Dream album but this one is my favorite. I love songs that yearn.

Good Point

From Facebook today...

Katie C i envy the male ability to compartmentalize...
Lance M it's really easy when there are only two compartments: food and sex.

SportsCenter

Sooooooo, how exactly DO you go about recounting an adventure such as the Olympics. I didn't take enough pictures, I should have blogged as I went instead of waiting until the end, and I'm still scatter brained and exhausted even after spending the weekend pretty much asleep. But I want to share some highlights and since this is a blog and not me talking incessantly, I don't have to worry about boring you! You can just stop reading!

Easily the best part of my experience was getting to know a whole bunch of really amazing people-and that's everyone from the athletes and their team staff to my USOC personnel to a group of ridiculously great volunteers, an amazing hotel staff and really terrific folks from all of my sponsors. You know how my favorite thing is people? I was like a kid in a damn candy store for three straight weeks. Every single day was a new crop of collector's items for me. Even as tired as I was and how compounded that tiredness is every day you are there, meeting these people and being part of the culimination of so many dreams was intoxicating. I don't know why my team needed so much beer ; )

Over and over I thought how lucky I am to be in a job where I'm surrounded by people who absolutely love what they do. No one ends up at the USOC because it's the only option-people here are talented and driven and they have high expectations of themselves and everyone around them. So they jump in. When I needed more muscle to help us unload trucks on the first day, I didn't even have to ask-the guys from the Performance Service Center just sucked up the early hour and helped us unload five semis. When I let most of my team go to a hockey game on load out day, the completely exhausted transportation boys came in and built pallets for me. No one complained when the Cross Country team came in late and we had to put in crazy hours to get them processed. Everyone was just as smiley for the Figure Skaters on Day 9 as they had been for the Long Track team on Day 1.

I got to see a bit more of the Olympics than I did when I worked on the Organizing Committee in Salt Lake which was a treat. My dear friend Paul who works with the IOC hooked me up with an Opening Ceremonies ticket which kind of made my head spin. Sarah McLachlan was flawless, hearing KD Lang do Hallelujah was brilliant and that version of "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell is one of my all time favorites. And after six months of staring at those Opening Ceremonies outfits on worksheets and counting them at the warehouse and hauling them to Canada and unpacking a ballroom full of pallets of them and watching our extraordinary Ralph Lauren tailors work wonders on all manner of body types, I burst into tears when the US Team walked out onto the ice. They looked so cute!!! Their boots were tucked so perfectly and the flags on all the moose hats were over the all the left ears! It was brilliant. And we all got a really good laugh at USA House that night when the stylist from Ralph Lauren who was backstage told us how blazing hot they all were and that they kept laying on the ground trying to cool off and he had to scream at them to STOP GETTING DIRT ON THE WHITE PANTS!

The next night I got some backstage passes to the Nelly Furtado show and my intern sidekick who has put up with me bossing him around pretty much nonstop since October and I went to see Hannah Kearney, Shannon Bahrke, Apolo Ohno and JR Celski get the first round of American medals. We were thisclose to the stage and then afterwards, the interns managed to convince a couple of local girls that they were athletes and I got to catch up with my dear Bev friend who is working furiously to ensure Event Services are flowing smoothly at all the city venues. It was wonderful to see her even if we didn't get enough time.

I made it to a Long Track event and even though the Zamboni broke down (what? in Canada???), I got to see both Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick skate which made my speed skating loving heart nearly burst.

We ran a program called the Olympic Ambassador Program that the athletes go through right before they leave Team Processing. They bring in past Gold Medalists to talk to the athletes about what it means to be an Olympian and to represent your country. So for two weeks we had Dan O'Brien, Nikki Stone, Vonetta Flowers and Bonnie Blair just hanging out at the hotel. There is something pretty fantastic about Dan O'Brien giving you his card and telling you to keep in touch. Class acts all of them, it always felt like the universe might explode sitting at the breakfast table with that many people who have been the very best in the world at what they do. And who were all so nice and down to earth about it.

I had a great time getting to know all the Team Leaders for each of the sports. The Team Leader is kind of like the Den Mother for the team. They handle all the logistics so the athletes can just focus on performing. So we end up working very closely with those guys in the run up to the Games and then on site. They were all so different and so fun. My favorite team leader moment being when the Bobsled/Skeleton TL was standing there on the last day with his Women's Bobsled team, waiting on two of them to finish packing and two of them to pick up alterations and two of them to quit arguing and he looked at me and said, "do you see why I'm single?" . I wanted to give him a gold medal on the spot.

There are a whole bunch of fun moments that aren't specifically Olympic related that you always get when you work an event and spend looooong hours with people. I ended up at the nearby casino more often than I would have guessed which happens when the going out crowd is mostly rowdy boys. I even managed to get up about $200 one night in black jack to the surprise of all the transportation crew. We spent more then a few nights at the Flying Beaver (seriously) eating wings until last call. We found an all you can eat sushi place that had sashimi that it breaks my heart to know I might never eat again. I got to know all my coworkers on a whole new level and even though events TOTALLY bring out the crazy in everyone (me included and perhaps in high doses), I love and appreciate how hard they all work and how much of their hearts they put into what they do.

I had one little personal disappointment amongst all the excitement but with a little distance, I'm relieved to finally let go of someone who had become fairly toxic in the last few years. And grateful that it happened at a time when fun and personal accomplishment could make it clear that everything was going to be just fine.

Professionally the Games felt like redemption. I am to a point where I am at peace with my time in Boston and every time I see Rickie Fowler's smiling face under a PUMA Golf hat I feel a surge of pride at what I was able to accomplish there but this is where I belong. This is a job that utilizes so many of my talents and feels like home. I was sitting in the office one day, cursing my computer for being so slow and not having a single clue whether it was Tuesday or Sunday and eating a rice crispie treat for breakfast and I just started grinning because this is what I love. And now that I'm home I have to say that I miss the constant phone ringing and blinky red blackberry light just a little bit more than I thought I would.

And then there were the athletes. You obviously get a few with too much ego who require more attention than you really think an adult should need but the OVERWHELMING majority of them are just a delight. A few of my favorite things...

-Nike was selling leather jackets, the only item that the athletes have to pay for. Apolo Ohno bought them for all his teammates who wouldn't have been able to get them otherwise. Didn't make a big fuss about it, just did it. The guy is a superstar but he came into Team Processing and just acted like a guy on a team.
-Casey Puckett came in late one night and we had to process him by himself the next morning. This was Casey's fifth team so I imagined he would be over it. Instead he spent three hours with us, trying stuff on, telling jokes, asking me to scratch his back because he was nursing a hurt shoulder. I asked him if the thrill wears off when it's your fifth Games. "Naw, it's always cool. It's the Olympics!"
-Every. Single. Member. of the Men's Bobsled team is just beautiful. I felt like we were on some kind of GQ shoot. I was walking past the alterations room at one point and one of my volunteers pokes his head out and says "katie katie!! You have to get in here!!!". Great, some emergency I'm sure...I go in and there are four guys from the team wearing just their Closing Ceremonies pants, ties and hats posing for photos from my staff and volunteers. So much for our zero tolerance policy on athlete ogling. Also funny when my volunteers discovered that one of them was LDS and ran into my office to tell me to go talk to him! He's single!! And one of your people!! (and 26! I did go talk to him!)
-Johnny Weir=delightful, Evan Lysacek=delightful, Lindsay Vonn=just as beautiful as you imagine.
-Shaun White was on a different flight than the rest of the team so he got to the hotel early. My transport guy called to let me know he was in the banquet hall if I wanted to go welcome him. I walk in and Shaun has wired his iPod to our speakers and he and his coach are LITERALLY bouncing off the walls in the room. I couldn't stop laughing because seriously, isn't that EXACTLY what you would expect when the snowboarders show up??
-There are so many athletes who are never going to medal but who were just so excited to be there. Can you imagine what it's like when you get to be around people whose dreams are coming true every single day for two weeks?? I can't see how I will ever be jaded in this job.
-My favorite athlete moment was my last night in Vancouver. I had gotten to be friends with one of the wax techs with the snowboard team. He called that night to say that they would be celebrating Seth Wescott's medal at the USA House. So after a focus group in the Village and dinner with Nike (oh yeah, I'm totally name dropping), I headed over to meet up with Alex. Most of my team was there so I got to say goodbye to people, ran into my friend Nick who I worked with in Salt Lake and had fun catching up with, and then finally found the snowboard boys. We're talking, flirting a little, and then he asks if I want to see a real live gold medal. So he introduces me to Seth who promptly pulls his medal out of his pocket and HANDS IT TO ME. And I protest, "Oh I can't hold it! It's a gold medal!" and he says, "it's America's medal! Hold it!". So I'm standing there, with four cute snowboard boys, holding a gold medal, in a beautiful city, with a crazy successful Team Processing behind me and all kinds of adventures waiting for me when I get home and everything just felt right in the world.

I am really looking forward to London and my first Summer Games experience but oh my heart belongs to the Winter Games. I spent a lot of time thinking about my experience eight years ago and how lucky I was to get to do this even once, let alone land a job where now this is just what I do.

On a more personal note, this job feels like a message from the heavens that God knows I am here and what my most important dreams really are. In the eight years since Salt Lake nearly every human I know has gotten married and/or had a baby. I never would have dreamed when I stood at Closing Ceremonies that I would be in a city we didn't even know about then, two Winter Games later, still a single lady. There are days I can't help but giggle because really? As Liz Lemon would say-"come on! The female Larry Bird is with a guy? What am I doing wrong?" And then I look at this job. And the eight years I spent feeling like I wasn't doing what I really loved and wanting so desperately to find that passion I had felt at SLOC (and I will interrupt myself here to say that I am FULLY AWARE that even in my low job points, I had terrific jobs in the last eight years and I do realize that no one feels bad for me that I had to travel all over the country and world and pitch deals to celebrities and live in cool cities so, please, take me with a grain of salt) and yet those eight years are precisely what made me a perfect fit for this dreamy job. As in, "we need someone who once worked at the Olympics and then spent a bunch of time working in the apparel industry and hey, if you could have experience with both events AND marketing that would be awesome." So I have to believe that somewhere , He's got a boy for me that will be the perfect fit for my thirty three years of experience. I have said before, and I will stand by it, that I wouldn't trade one second of the life I've had to have been married or a mom before right now. I am so thrilled and satisfied with who I am and the path I'm on. But I also think it would be silly of me to pretend that a family isn't on my To Do list. If you had told me a year ago that I would be writing this post my head would have exploded trying to figure out how I got here. So I'll take this clue that He knows I'm here and knows how to get me where I need to be. And he's out there. And not in any danger of winning a gold medal for speed ; )

Cracks in the Photograph

So I'm back from Vancouver. Back in my apartment, back at my desk, back in Colorado Springs.

I have about a million thoughts and feelings running around but they all have one thing in common-change. Everything here looks the same but you can't go through an experience like this one and come back without so much being different. My view of myself and how I work, my relationships with my coworkers, the volume of new people I met, the friends I reconnected with. It's this crazy and intense three weeks where every little thing becomes a giant thing, emotions are all on the surface and then suddenly you are just back at home and it's all over but you feel like a totally different person.

I had a truly obscene amount of fun and I made new friends and came home with a few phone numbers (wink!) and I saw wonderful things but it was also so many long hours and not enough sleep and too much Diet Coke and not enough exercise and so many heightened feelings and you never know what day it is and you never get to do everything and see everyone no matter how much you wanted to.

And then you get home and you have all of these stories and like pretty much any experience, your friends want to hear a little bit but they DO NOT want to hear everything and really the only people who want to talk about it are the people you are just a little bit sick of after living/working/eating/crying together for a month or so.

I remember on our last night in Salt Lake, everyone was so tired and ready to be done that the office cleared out within about half an hour of the last skater leaving the ice. I was so young and I'm such an emotional little creature that I just stood there looking around at the empty room and feeling like my world had just fallen apart. I'm experienced enough now to know that we'll all come back and we'll debrief and we'll go to London to start scouting Team Processing sites, and we'll take the Olympic Team to the White House and real life will stop feeling anti-climatic. But tonight, while I'm sitting at my kitchen table watching my blackberry crackle with updates about medal counts and media advisories I can't help but feel a bit like my 25 year old self.

Still, it sure felt amazing to be EXACTLY where I wanted to be. I'm a lucky girl. A tired and worn down one, but a very very lucky one.

Go World

Good Intentions

I had these grand plans to blog every night so I wouldn't forget this experience but then I decided I'd rather HAVE the experience than worry to much about capturing it. So I'm not taking a ton of photos and I've hardly written a thing but I'm having a blast. Stuff like Dan O'Brien hopping in the suburban with us to go grab a sandwich or the interns becoming impromptu Secret Service when Apolo Ohno decided to just walk out the front door of the airport with no escort.

Just so happy to be here.

Brief

It's 10:35 and I should reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally get to bed since it's pretty much the last night before teams start to show up but this is so much fun I can't get myself to bed. Great team, great sushi, and the feeling that I'm back exactly where I belong.

More to come...

Gone

Rain

When I moved to California for the first time almost eight years ago I spent a LOT of time alone. I worked from home and it just took me a long time to make friends.

Most of my days were filled going to Lady Foot Locker stores and teaching the staff about the brand I worked for so I was in malls all the time. My favorite one was the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. It's an outdoor mall and it's right next to the beach so I would try to visit that store as often as I could. They had a great music store there that would let you listen to any CD before you bought it. I was in there so much that one of the clerks called me "shoe girl".

Back then I was a pretty diehard Dave Matthews fan and there was quite a bit of buzz around his ATO Records label. I figured if Dave loved someone, they were probably a safe bet (that is true by the way, ATO has some killer artists). Patty Griffin happened to be on sale one day in that little record store on the Promenade and I fell madly in love with her album 1000 Kisses.

That summer I also happened to have a sort of disappointing boy experience and that album turned out to be a major source of comfort. I may have been a bit disappointed by a boy in the last few weeks and I am happy to report that Patty still does a bang up job filling up those little holes only a failed romance can poke.

This song probably spent the most time on repeat that summer. I still love it.

Ring Around the Rosie

I wrote a post a few years ago about how I didn't think I really wanted an engagement ring and for sure I wasn't interested in a diamond. I think I did a poor job of explaining why but my sister does a much better job here of explaining why she got an engagment rocking chair instead. It's one of my favorite things she's ever written.

Jet Plane

Last year when I was trying like crazy to figure out a way out of my miserable life, I had decided I would try to get a job with the Vancouver Organizing Committee. I had some good contacts and I thought it would be a good way transition back into the Olympic world. I told my friend Carrie about my plan and she responded by sending me a book of walking tours of Vancouver. Her confidence that I would need that book still gets me a little teary eyed.

The right opportunity never really came up but I kept that little book by my bed and looked at every night and promised it I would use it eventually. Even so I'm sort of pinching myself that I leave for Vancouver in three days. I spent the first part of the day furiously cleaning my house (full disclosure, I am such a clean freak that normal people might not be able to see an actual difference) and then the second half running around getting my errands done so I can leave for three weeks. And maybe getting my eyebrows waxed and buying a few more cute things to wear during the Games. I mean, if a girl is going to be mixing with Olympians, she doesn't want to do it with stray eyebrows right??

My intern left this morning and we spent about 20 minutes just staring at each other yesterday trying to come up with anything major we may have forgotten. He and I have been joined at the hip for the last three months and I was way more panicked watching him leave my office then I was when my boss left last week. Too real now I suppose.

I know I can do this, and part of me thinks it's funny that 25 year old me was probably less stressed out about the Games than 33 year old me because she was too young and dumb to know what was about to happen.

That's what I am the most excited about-not having any idea what is about to happen. I've planned really well, I've tried to think of everything, and now it's time to just get there and let the adventure happen however it wants to happen. I've been getting all kinds of emails from friends who will be there with all kinds of fun things to do (we already have our tickets to the Barenaked Ladies on the 16th-how Canadian is that??). There is a TON of work ahead-six semis with my name on them will leave Monday morning and we'll unpack them Friday. We have about 600 athletes and team staff come through during our 10 days of operation. Anything could happen and the anticipation and the unknown has me feeling like I'm going slowly up the first hill of some ridiculous Six Flags roller coaster. I know the ride will be fantastic but I also kind of want to throw up.

One thing I do know is that I really can't wait to tell you guys all about it. I feel like the theme of 2010 is going to be "making up for lost time." I have the Games, a trip to Mexico, a site visit to London and two really great weddings all in the next few months. Like Conan O'Brien said last night (and it sort of made me tear up a little bit) "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen".

Here's to amazing things happening to kind people!

(I've been obsessed with this song all day.)

Witness To Your Life - Lori Mc...

Truth

I can't wait for summer in Colorado.

Wedding Bells

We're finally getting a brother-in-law!


Welcome to the family Aaron!



Good job sister : )

A little great!

My friend Corinne, who has a PhD, a cute husband and two of the most adorable children ever has just given birth to a really fun new lifestyle blog called A Little Great. They have tidbits on everything from fitness to literature to staying organized by a variety of writers. And guess who is doing the music reviews?

Yep, I know enough to be just a wee bit ahead of the mommy set the blog is geared to so it's been a lot of fun. I've only just started but come here to see how I managed to weave Dolly Parton and Common into the same post. It's fun to have another outlet for writing and even though I'm so busy right now I had to drag a date SHOE SHOPPING with me last night just to fit all my errands in, this is helping keep myself a little bit sane. See you there : )

Up

Quite a week folks. I fell into bed at about 10:30 on Friday night which is unheard of for this little night owl and slept like a rock until 8:30. That sleeping like a rock is also fairly unusual but I was BEAT. However, 250 Olympic and Paralympic staffers now have their uniforms for the Games and I took a giant leap towards feeling confident we can pull this off for the athletes in Vancouver next month.

Yesterday I just sort of goofed around, went for a run, got a massage, grocery shopped, watched a movie with a friend-oh, AND went to the office for three hours. So today I resolved that I would not give into the temptation to do any weekend work. Church was over at noon (which is painful when I have to get up early on a Sunday but feels really good when it's over early too) and the weather was spectacular (seriously Boston, you should take a lesson, this is what winter should feel like!) so I decided to tackle the famous Manitou Incline.

The Manitou Incline is the scar left up a mountain here in the Springs by the Mount Manitou Scenic Incline Railway. The fact that people of old preferred to get to the top of this thing by railroad car should tell you something about how insane the trail is.

One mile up.
2800 railroad ties.
2000 feet of vertical.
And four miles back down the Barr trail.

Yep. Here's an old timey poster of it.



My friend Ian lives close by so I talked him into going at least part of the way with me (this story ends with Ian beating me home by about 45 minutes. The shame). I've been using my still not totally adjusted Boston lungs as an excuse not to take the several invites I've gotten to join people. And just before I got to what I had heard was a false summit I started thinking those ill prepared lungs were going to explode. 2000 vertical feet! You can feel every stupid inch. The whole round trip took me a little over two hours and I only had one nasty little spill on the way down-it's super icy on the trail coming back and I was being careless. I had no idea you could buy ice spikes for your running shoes but they must do a brisk business in them here judging from the volume of crazies barreling down the trail.

I got super lazy about pushing myself physically in Boston. If I'm being honest, I got lazy about pushing myself period in Boston. So if the past few months I've been working a little too much and charging straight up a mountain is what counts for a relaxing Sabbath, I'll take it.

Go Time

All the talk talk planning talking counting planning talking of the last three months kicks off tomorrow when I get to outfit about 220 members of Team USA staff. It's a good practice for the actual Team event in Vancouver but I'm a touch nervous about how everything will go. I feel prepared and I know we've worked our tails off but still-I have never done this before and I don't know what I don't know.

BUT, the interns and I had a fabulous time today getting everything set up and then doing our own "shopping trips" through the apparel stations.

I'm really glad these two will be roommates so they can dress the same every. single. day. So cute!
Mostly I just like Ian and Charlie in the back there looking like excited little girls digging through a box.

I may never want to wear red, white and blue again after March but right now I have to say, we are going to look pretty darn sharp!

Perspective

I started the year 2000 fast asleep in my missionary bed in Geneva, Switzerland. I figured it was God's way of helping me build character that the girl who hates with all her heart to miss out on anything had to watch all day as the city prepared for the party of the century and then go to sleep at 10:30. Little did I know that my quiet evening would usher in a decade so rich and full that my head almost explodes when I look back on it.

My biggest fear when I left on my mission was that somehow that was it. I was going to come home, grow up, get a job and be stuck in a monotonous adult life. College had been so much fun and I made such dear friends that I simply couldn't imagine things could actually be better when I could no longer stay up all night and spend half my life laughing around a table at Denny's.

My mother and I went to Paris 29 days into 2000. My dad got a kidney transplant about 35 days in. Within three months I had landed a dream job and met people who are STILL altering the course of my life.

My parents divorced this decade. I bought my first car. And my second. And my third. I was rink side for all the good stories at the 2002 Olympics, I met boys who felt like soul mates and learned that some of those are just teachers and not "the one". I moved across the country three times. I signed a couple of major sponsorship deals, ran a marathon and discovered a passion for activity I never knew existed, I made friends with all my siblings and gained three amazing sisters-in-law. I finally became an Aunt-twice! I watched nearly every friend from college and high school and my mother get hitched and sent more baby presents that I can ever count. I spent six months crying every day before I quit a miserable job but I learned stuff I wouldn't trade. I got my heart kicked around a fair amount but I still find myself offering it up so I don't think the damage is permanent. I've been able to travel like crazy and get to know some pretty great cities here and abroad. I found out sushi is completely awesome. I lived with a ton of really fantastic women over the last ten years but got to finish the decade in my very own beautiful space.

I could go on for days but suffice it to say, the 00's were flat out amazing. I feel like I accomplished so many of my dreams and got to move on to bigger ones. As my blog tagline says, I think my 16 year old self would approve-I flat out love the person I have grown up to be. The potential for the Teens or whatever we are going to call the next ten years is unreal. I already know I have Vancouver, London, Russia and Rio to look forward to which blows my mind just a little bit. I hope hope hope that these are the ten years that include marriage and babies for me and I'm proud of myself for saying that in print. It's not really a goal you can accomplish through work and tenacity like pretty much everything else in my life so it freaks me out to admit that I hope it happens. Soon.

I'll be 43 when I write the next one of these. Forty three. I'm sitting here at noon still in my jammies, listening to Bon Iver and looking out the window at the mountains in Colorado Springs and thinking that if 23 year old me had no concept of what was in store then 33 year old me should not worry about a single thing.

And with that, I'm off to go for a run. 2010 should start with a good sweat don't you think?

Carry Me

My favorite sounds tonight.

Olde Tyme

If you ever lived in Utah as a kid, I am certain you went to Lagoon at least once a summer. And I am also certain that you remember the black and white photo shop in Pioneer Village where you could get your picture taken as a 19th century saloon girl or gunfighter. And I am willing to bet that most of your parents were not willing to pay whatever ridiculous amount of money they charged at said shop to get such a photo. Am I right?

So when Emily came out to Colorado Springs and we walked by such a place in our touristy wanderings, the 12 year old me was just bursting to do it. It turned out that 12 year old Em was pretty easy to convince as well and next thing you knew this happened:



I'm thinking I ought to crop that cleavage, make it my Facebook profile photo and see what if it has any effect on my relationship status.

But don't worry, after we satisfied our inner 12 year olds, we let our inner Olympians out as well.




Sonic drinks are very, very important staples of our training you see.

25

Coming home to Utah is always such a blur. We stay up late, I never manage to see everyone no matter how much running around I do, I drink a truly disturbing amount of Diet Dr. Pepper and then suddenly it's over and I am exhausted and happy and just a little bit dazed.

This trip has been really fun. My sister came to Colorado Springs on Friday to help me put my apartment together and keep me company on the loooong drive home (but oh! to live within driving distance of the family!). It's been just about a week I almost have Morgan convinced that I really am a member of the family.

One of the best parts of being here though has been the social overload. Remember that I totally love my new job and I'm enjoying the new apartment and the new city but it's been a lot of new. 2009 was an absolutely exhausting year. I was miserable for the first three months of it, I changed jobs twice and I moved to a brand new place for the first time in a long time. So I'm having a great time and feeling happy and blessed and all kinds of other superlatives but it's also been a long year of being "on". Learning new stuff, working hard, trying to make friends, being a wee bit concerned about the utter lack of dating prospects-it all combines to wear a girl out. So when I sit at a table with the girls I grew up with and we laugh about junior high crushes and Sunday School teachers we hid from and babies and husbands, it feels like watering a half dead plant. It's been a week stuffed full of those kinds of moments-friends from all stages of my life who just fill me right back up and put back all the emotional electrolytes I lost in this nutso year. I feel awfully lucky for my job and the move but of all my embarrassingly large haul of blessings, I am most thankful for my adorable family and my share and then some of good, good friends. A roommate a few years ago teased me that some people collect stamps-I collect people. I am pretty sure I have a Sotheby's worthy collection because I've been laughing and smiling nonstop for eight days.

Now I'm going to go fill up on getting attacked by my brothers and quilting with my sisters while we listen to Sufjan Stevens. Bliss.

Intro

My baby sister (who is 18 and really isn't a baby at all) started a new blog and it is awesome.

Start here

I'll post this week if I ever stop cuddling with Morgan.

Heist

I went to Vancouver last weekend for a final site visit before the Games and got pulled into a little adventure we like to call "ticket pick-up". That's when four of us go to Canada with empty suitcases and come back with about $2 million in tickets. Yep.

Step one is to go to the Organizing Committee and count out about 14,000 tickets to make sure we got them all. Here is Nancy opening the ceremonial first box.


Then the cute ticketing guy explains to us how to read the ticket.

Awww, look at me with my stack of Speed Skating tickets...notice how I ALREADY look tired and this is BEFORE we spent 22 hours in a conference room counting, counting, counting.
Being at the Office meant seeing several people that I like quite a lot. Scott and Bev from the Salt Lake Games came down to say hello. Bev and I keep in great touch but I hadn't seen Scott in seven years. Aside from a few more gray hairs though, he was the same delightful guy who used to bring us to our knees laughing way back when. We got telling stories and I am pretty sure the interns with us thought we were insane. It felt so good to see them, even just for a few minutes.
Here is the ticket counting machine that sort of makes you feel like you are doing something illegal. Although pretty much the whole experience made me feel like I was doing something illegal. Can you imagine the looks you get at the airport when four of you come through the TSA with nothing in your carryons???
And here is two million dollars worth of tickets.
We spent the next two days counting, sorting, and assigning tickets to all of our National Govering Bodies. We were watching Ellen while we worked and what should be wandering eyes should appear but John Mayer! Wearing one of the Ralph Lauren sweaters our athletes are getting! The very sweaters I have been counting for the last month! Full circle my friends.
And if you are wondering how we got all those tickets home? No armored car, no bodyguards. Just four ladies and our suitcases. The station manager in Vancouver was nice enough to come in early and walk us through the airports so we could get right to the plane with no waiting. You sure get a lot of curious looks when you are being waved through every checkpoint plus customs. Definitely the way to travel folks.Our bags were all crazy heavy. I was pulling mine down from the overhead compartment and said something about it breaking my back and the guy behind me said, "heh, must be all that gold bullion you have in there." I made nervous eye contact with Lisa and Brittney and we all giggled like dorks. We are very subtle.

I was so dead tired when I got home I thought for sure I would just fall into bed. Instead I grocery shopped, did laundry, cleaned my house, got a pedicure and wrapped Christmas presents. I'm hoping there is something like sleep under the tree for me next week.

The end.

Down

As you may have guessed from reading this thing lately, life is pretty good.

I do have a complaint though.

I have had zero zero zero time to write in the last three months. Don't misunderstand, I love being busy! I love feeling really good at my job again! I love getting to do new and interesting things!

But I miss writing. This has been an insane week of Games Staff Training and I had to give not one or two but three presentations and I finally feel like a human again. I desperately want to write about that but it's 10:25 and I'm so friend that I just watched two straight hours of television to give my brain a break. I get to the end of the day lately and I'm completely spent.

But there are tulips on my table (MY table!) and the apartment is warm and my bed is cozy and the sunshine wakes me up every day and I'm going to Vancouver in two days. And yesterday I cried at work and not because I was sad but because our Director of Paralympics brought us all to tears with his closing remarks. And that folks, is why this girl is going to keep the murmuring to a minimum and get to bed.

This Christmas

All I did this weekend was sleep. I managed to pull myself out of the house to go for a failure of a run, go to a parade with my friend Heather and her family, hit an hour of church and get a tiny bit of grocery shopping done.

Other than that, I caught up on a few shows and watched The Proposal so I could stare at Ryan Reynolds for awhile and I slept. At first I was feeling really guilty about sleeping away my weekend but then I realized, hey self, you've been pulling 12-14 hour work days for about three weeks so it's really possible that what you needed was a whole bunch of rest.

I've been listening to a whole bunch of Christmas music while I slugged around. Here are some of my favorites for your enjoyment!

These guys went to school with my friend Lori and they are really quite fantastic.


The Weepies



Is it even Christmas without Nat King Cole??



If you can get your hands on Sufjan Steven's Christmas albums, do. Fantastic.



This is Judy Garland and Bing Crosby doing Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and it's one of my all time favorites. It's so clever and fun.



How wonderful are the Beach Boys?? This little gem is just a perfect example of everything they were so good at-fun lyrics, great harmonies, and catchy catchy tunes that stick like crazy in your head.



Make fun of me if you want to but I love Justin Timberlake and I think this is such a pretty version of one of my favorite classics.



And finally-Taylor Swift doing Last Christmas!!! What could be better??



I love Christmas!

Finito

So we finished counting all the apparel for the Games today. My shoulders hurt, I've been dirty for like three straight weeks and I'm sick to death of cardboard. But today when we stacked all of our pallets neatly against the walls and our 30,000 items were all accounted for I might have done an actual dance of joy.

Here it all is-every scrap of Opening and Closing Ceremonies, Podium wear and a whole bunch more fun stuff you get if you spend your entire life training your head off. (psss, those stacks are six deep friends. I'm ready to die.)

My coworkers are going to kill me

But then again, this pose took zero coaxing so...


Oh I love my job.

Last Christmas

I looooooove Christmas music. Love it! And these days I love the show Glee too.

So when I found a version of the cast of Glee singing Wham's "Last Christmas" I almost died.



Hooray!!!

Fact

Pretty much all you need to know about me in one sequence of events from this evening:

I took a nice quiet bath for about half an hour. Immediately after getting out I scrubbed the tub, mopped the floor, washed the bath mats and vacuumed the entire apartment.

Because seriously, relax? How would I even do that?

Bless You

I was going to write a long post about the differences between Thanksgiving 2008 and Thanksgiving 2009 but instead I'm going to rip off my friend's Facebook status from yesterday. It's pretty perfect.

Without exaggaration, if one year ago today somebody would have shown me today, I would have wept for joy. What a miraculous year it has been for me. Blessings from above and I am thankful indeed.

Bring Him Home

One day when I was 11 or 12, my mom brought home some tapes she was very excited about. She had seen a segment on 20/20 about a new Broadway musical and was so struck by one of the songs they highlighted in the story that she went right out and bought the soundtrack. I was just a wee thing but I still vividly remember her putting in the tape and finding the song (hey remember tapes? the fast forwarding to get the song you wanted? that was awesome) and playing one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard as loud as she could get our stereo to go. We had speakers left over from my dad's college rock bands days so that is kind of saying something. I used to love to stand right next to those things when the music was loud and I could feel it thumping right into my chest.

The musical was the adaptation of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" and the song was "Bring Him Home", Valjean's prayer to save the wounded love of his daughter's life.

If you are unfamiliar with the story, Les Miserables is basically about redemption and atonement and my mother fell madly in love with the musical. She got so good at talking about it that Relief Society groups and Book Clubs all over the valley would have her come give her presentation about it complete with selections from the play. She finally got to see it in LA a few years later and then on Broadway a few years after that. So I grew up with the story and the music as a staple in our house and it was rarely played quietly. I still know every single word to every single song. When I went to New York for high school graduation I finally got to see it on Broadway as well and it was every bit as amazing and inspiring as I expected. I was slightly outraged at my classmates who like "Phantom of the Opera" better.

So if you want to know why the Twilight phenomenon with it's creepy codependent love story and shirtless werewolves is so annoying to me, blame it on the woman who raised me. It's not that I was above teen drama and romance-I used to listen to sad little Eponine sing "On My Own" to a Marius who didn't even know she was alive and cry my guts out. But my mother loved this musical not just because the music is fantastic and the story is engaging but because there is depth and truth it and you can't watch it without feeling something real. And watching it isn't exactly homework-the play ran for 16 years on Broadway and 21 years in London. It won eight Tony awards, and grossed 1.8 billion dollars worldwide-it was a phenomenon too. It's not too much to expect that something can be obsession worthy and still maybe leave you a little bit better.

My iTunes spit out a bunch of Les Miz tonight and after I was done sobbing I managed to find the clip of that 20/20 segment on YouTube. I had actually never seen it but it shows the first time Colm Wilkinson sang "Bring HIm Home" in rehearsal and I honestly think if you can watch this and not feel anything you might want to have your soul examined.



Then here is a full version of the song from the 10th Anniversary performance.



My poor future children. I'm going to make them read Pride and Prejudice and watch Romeo and Juliet and go to museums. They are so going to hate me. Unless of course I get kids like me and then they will totally write a nice blog post 23 years later about how awesome I am for introducing them to greatness.

Thanks Mom.

A Room of One's Own

I've done a fair amount of adult things in my life. I'm a college graduate, and a returned missionary. I've managed million dollar budgets and moved across the country not once or twice but three times. I've bought cars, flown to foreign countries by myself, and even have a 401k.

But the most grown up I have ever felt was this week when I moved into my first apartment all by myself. For the first time in my life, I'm the only person who lives here! It's all mine to clean up or mess up and build forts in the living room if I want.

I've been pretty lucky in the roommate department over the last 15 years of living with people. I have generally lived with good, well-adjusted girls in cute apartments with low drama factors. But when I moved to Colorado I decided it was a good time to try getting my own little space. I found a cute place near the mountains with a lovely view of the city. All week I've fallen asleep to the twinkling lights of Colorado Springs out my bedroom window.

It's been way, way too much fun. Anyone who has ever lived with me will know that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time in my towel instead of proper clothing and I don't think I've turned the stereo off since I moved in.

One thing I haven't really done over the years is to collect more then clothes, CD's and books. I have more shoes then I can fit in the giant walk in closet but I don't own a couch or a skillet. So yesterday I spent more money in one eight hour period then I have in my entire life setting up a kitchen and getting some key furniture pieces to build around. My sister who is much better at making things pretty than I am is coming before Christmas to help me hang art on the walls and figure what to do with the inordinate amount of space I have in my bathroom. My OWN bathroom. Yep, first time for that too.

I went to a Dixie Chicks show a few years ago and this song really hit home for me. What I dream about has always been a bit different from a lot of the girls I grew up with. Not better, just different. A little spot of my very own was always on the list and although I'm finding I need more patience in getting where I want to be than I ever imagined, there is a special sweetness to finally getting there. Even if you take a long, long, bumpy road to get there.

Backyardigans

So this is ten minutes from my house.

Hey there is a guy up there!
Oh hello deer.

I need to make some friends so I can take less awkward photos of myself.


Not a bad place to call home eh?

Factory Girl

So I may not actually be cut out for a life of manual labor. We spent this week counting every. single. piece. of apparel the athletes will get in February. The sense of pride I will get when I see Bode Miller on the medals stand, knowing I have touched not only his jacket but his tights AND his socks *might* not be worth the fact that now I have to spend the weekend moving my OWN clothes across town and my nails are already all broken.

However, this is the week I discovered Fanfarlo. If you don't like them yet, try harder. Their album Reservoir is so fantastic and you don't believe me, trust my friend Heather who knows far more than I do about music that is awesome. If this hadn't been such an exhausting week I would be in Denver RIGHT NOW watching them.

But I caught up with Coach Taylor and Liz Lemon tonight and despite my whining, that ain't a bad Friday night.

I Wear Sneakers

I'm just going to admit it. I am a tad bit obsessed with Taylor Swift. You're laughing. That's OK, I'm very comfortable with it.

I put "Love Story" on a running mix earlier this year because it's has this great building chorus that is so perfect for hill climbing and it opened some sort of floodgate. Next thing I knew I was picking up her CD at Target and now I know the whole album by heart. I know!

But hear this, if you were ever a 15 year old female living in the suburbs this little album hits ridiculously close to home. Even if you like to think you were a fairly serious teenager with a lot of important things on her mind, life was still about and crushes and dances and football games and boys who didn't seem to realize you were totally perfect for them. And although it's really easy for adult me to look back at 15 year old me and be dismissive of the way she felt about stuff, I listen to this CD and I remember that it really did feel like the end of the world when that kid really did want to date the head cheerleader instead of me. And since one day I might actually be the mom to such a 15 year old I'd like to keep a little link to that part of myself.

This is my favorite thing to sing along to. Try it, it's really fun.

You Belong With Me

Whirl

I'm back from my whirlwind trip to New York. From the moment I landed Sunday night until I nearly passed out on my forecasting project Thursday evening we honestly did not stop moving. The event was fantastic though and if you caught a glimpse of any of the Today Show on Wednesday morning you definitely got an overload of Olympic spirit. And like I said, I was scurrying around behind the scenes.

This is just a quick clip from the ice right after the hockey segment. If you don't follow hockey, the silver haired gentleman is Jim Craig from the 1980 US Hockey Team that beat Team Russia and went on to win gold. The guy sitting down is Mike Eruzione who scored that winning goal and the tall, handsome fella (who was so darn cute I got a little flustered when I introduced myself and said, "I'll be helping you get dressed this morning.") is David Backes who currently plays for the St. Louis Blues and will most likely end up on the US Hockey Team in Vancouver. And then you'll see three time Gold Medalist swimmer Rowdy Gaines who was the event emcee getting a few photos of his own.


Needless to say, it was a spectacular day. And aside from offering to help a professional hockey player change his clothes (which he seemed cool with by the way), I was beyond excited to be back in event mode. Stuff like finding a tailor who would do emergency embroidery on a jersey, getting athletes to and fro, and tracking down size 11 black shoes at midnight for an emcee who only had brown lest one of our sponsors have a fashion heart attack the next day-this might all sound like a nightmare to you but I was practically walking out of my skin with with joy. I might not survive the Games if it continues to feel so good.

I got on the plane on Friday completely exhausted but still managed to flirt with the cute stranger who ended up next to me ORD to COS and then slept for 12 hours. Today I picked up the keys to MY VERY OWN APARTMENT, the first time in my life I get to live all by myself. It's been a good week people. I hope yours has too.

(The only photo I got of myself. And I'm wearing a swoosh.)

Apple

I'm in New York this week for work-got in late last night and seriously haven't stopped moving since.

But if you happen to be in the city on Wednesday, come down to Rockefeller Center and you can try out a Luge and try to get on the Today Show background. And if you have a Tivo, set it for 9:30 EST because Nike and Polo will be unveiling the Opening and Closing Ceremonies uniforms as well as the Podium outfits. And you can imagine that somewhere behind camera I am running around like a crazy person.

I seriously love my job.

Future Olympian

The Olympics are in a little over 100 Days. My nephew is super excited.


Babies in hats...what could be cuter????

Shhh, don't tell

Maybe you saw photos of the blizzard in Denver this week? Well this is what it looks like 60 miles south.


Guys, this place is awesome.

Dance Dance Revolution

I can't fully express the depth of my obsession with this song back in the fall of 2004. Then the video came out and my love for it grew even deeper. Everything about it is so charming, it was the perfect thing to roll through my iPod on a clear, cold Friday.

Hey Thanks!

Dear Married People:

You don't.

KC: so FNL was awesome, i'm making my favorite spaghetti, listening to Otis and anticipating a funny 30 rock in half an hour. Does a cold winter night get any better????
26 minutes ago · Comment · Like

DD :A husband for ya would make it better, right? ;)
23 minutes ago · Delete

Thanks,

Single People

Why the Face?

I have a slightly broken heart tonight. Season Four of Friday Night Lights premiered tonight and I don't know a soul with Direct TV. It's hard for me to be rational about how much I love this show. I rewatched the first season this summer after forcing my friend Traci to watch the pilot with me one night (her Facebook status today? FNL. I'm good.) and I just cried my way through it. The writing is great, the acting is fabulous and it's just so gosh darn pretty to watch.

My rock star friend Rudy is feverishly searching for places to download the thing but I'll admit, when I found just this clip of the credits on YouTube, I might have gotten a tear.

Dry

You know how sometimes you go to YouTube to look up an old Boyz II Men song your friend Natalie had as her gchat tag today and then 25 minutes later you are walking through the back catalogue of New Edition? What did we all do before the internet?

The enabling is disabled on YouTube but this song is just killing me right now. I got New Edition's Greatest Hits from one of those Columbia "get 12 free now and buy one someday" specials when I was a senior in high school. When my parents let me paint my bedroom (my OWN bedroom) I listened to that and He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince over and over for days on end. A year later my friend Brandon, who I had an insane crush on at the time, came over to my college apartment and declared those two the only things worth listening to in my room.

So tonight I'm watching these old videos (wow, I know every word to "Poison"-miss her kiss her love her) and loving my funny little suburban Salt Lake 17 year old self and her R&B phase.

Bloom

It's almost November and I've been in Colorado for a little over a month now. That's not very long but somehow it feels like I left Boston about a million years ago.

I'm sitting in the living room watching snow fall outside the window and it's making me laugh. Over Christmas last year my sister and I were sitting her apartment during one of the many nasty storms Utah got over the holidays and she said something about how much she loved to watch snow fall. I was jealous that my time in Boston was turning me into a snow hater. Maybe it was that I always got jolted from the endless sunshine of Huntington Beach to gloom and doom on the East Coast but I just loathed the winter and all it's evidence. It was dark and cold and it just seemed to go on and on and on.

So it's funny to me that here I am, sitting in the living room watching the snow fall and listening to Patty Griffin, and everything feels soft and peaceful.

Which brings me to something I've been thinking about a lot this last month. You know that generally good advice that we choose the way we react to things and that it's up to us to make the best of whatever is going on in life? Well I generally believe that. I also generally believe that sometimes there are points in our lives that things just flat out suck. And we can choose not to let it swallow us whole and we can choose to have faith that it will get better and we can even choose to try to slap a smile on our Facebook photos while it's happening. But there is a big difference between grinning and bearing it and truly grinning. I felt that in the Spring when I switched from the job that was sucking my soul to the one that was actually pretty great. It was like that moment when the cold medicine kicks in and you think-why didn't I take that an hour ago?? Multiply that by like a thousand and that's how I've felt the last six weeks. Like the first gulp of air when you've been holding your breath underwater. Even the last six months in Boston I kept thinking that I was so lucky to have been able to change jobs and I was doing something fun and learning this new sport-but I lived in a city I was done with and knew that I didn't want to be with the company long term. I did all the things I would have advised a friend to do in the same situation-I bought cookbooks and hung out with friends and wrote and joined a gym that made me more excited to go, I finally got my bike ready to really ride. I chose to be happy. But despite all my efforts, life was kind of in a holding pattern there for awhile. The day I got an email from an old friend saying, "hey I think there is a good opening at the USOC, do you want to give it a try?" my first thought was-I'm only five months into this new job, would this be me just running away? Fortunately that thought was trumped by one of my life mottos which is "new opportunities are worth exploring." (although that is the same motto that made me tell that recruiter that yes, although I explicitly said don't ever come to me with a job on the East Coast, especially not Boston, I would LOVE to apply for a job at a tiny little brand with no money that I will hate! So the system is not foolproof I suppose!)

So I explored and two months later I'm happier then I can remember being in years. And it's not because this place is perfect-Colorado Springs is SMALL, and there are no single mormon boys to speak of and I have to drive to Denver if I want to shop the J. Crew sale rack or go to a show. But my job makes me happy every single day and yesterday I rode my bike on mountain roads and a guy who trains Olympians is writing a weight lifting program for me. Life is good. Really, really good.

So the fact is that two years ago I was feeling restless and bored even though I had a good job and a beach in my front yard. It took some freaky twists but now here I am in a city that has effortlessly hooked me at a company I didn't even dare put on my dream lists back then because it seemed so out of reach. It's ok once in awhile to choose to be unhappy or bored or sad. My firm belief is that feeling that way is no way to live, but sometimes it's the only thing that will jolt us into action. I think we can Pollyanna ourselves into staying in something that just isn't good enough-a job or a relationship or a habit. Nobody tells you to ignore your body when it says it's thirsty or tired, why ignore your heart when it says it's unhappy?

I'll get off my soap box now-the snow is still going strong and I have to find my friend Damian's obscenely good hot chocolate recipe. I do love a snowy day!