Erin The Great

I am thinking… I am relaxed… I can smell beef flavor wafting through the air as my Ramen noodles sit boiling on the stove. Has it really been almost a week since I’ve blogged?? This is despicable and I promise will never happen again…

As I sat on my couch watching ’27 Dresses’ pondering life and whatnot, I realized that I have learned a lot in my life, and the life lessons that I’ve been learning as of recently are starting to become one of my favorite pastimes since they happen upon me at least twice a week. Here is a list of my favorite things I’ve learned over the month of June.

• Mormon wedding receptions are extremely awkward and uncomfortable, especially if you’re single… believe it or not but I don’t really like being set up with the bride’s ex-boyfriend.

• Who ever said ‘you can never go home’ clearly wasn’t from Oregon… I never feel more relaxed then when I’m in my home state, even if I’m being exercised on a street in Portland.

• When you take wit and sarcasm out of my dialog, I have very little to say… surprisingly.

• Every time you say… ‘I need to blog’ and set down time to do so, something will always come up making it impossible to do so.

• I’ve been living in Provo Utah for 5 years… I have also been a bank teller for 5 years…. I’m thinking something needs to change if not both.

• You should never date a guy that is exactly like your brother… it’s too weird.

• Surprisingly enough, finding out a former professor was stabbed to death by his son does have an effect on you.

• Sometimes you want to blog about something but because friends and family read your blog, it is rather difficult to just ‘go off’ about certain subjects in front of certain readers. Crap.

• Swear jars do NOT help!!! Especially under extremely stressful circumstances… being around little kids however… Hello filter! Don’t ever leave me!

• I love seeing old friends… just not when they try to kiss you. Awk.ward!

• Climbing in and out of living room windows to try and avoid awkwardness is much harder then it looks!

Little life lessons are great. It has been quite the random and awkward month but it has set me up with blog fodder for months.

Happy Father’s Day! I don’t want to brag but I pretty much have the coolest Dad around. I grew up being ‘Daddy’s Girl’. Well, ‘Daddy’s Girl’ that could play sports, out spit, out belch and out punch most of the boys my age… until High School that is. Yes my dad’s blond haired, brown-eyed little girl grew up basically a boy, but beggars can’t be choosers right?

I’ve learned many things from my father. Like how The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd were what God was listening to when he created the PAC-10 on the 6th day. He taught me most of what I know in regards to pranking and outdoor survival. I don’t know how my mother felt about her very impressionable 10-year-old daughter being taught the fundamentals of short-sheeting a bed as well as the proper way to make methyl blue/Ex-Lax brownies, but at least learning how to survive outdoors counteracted that. Thanks to my dad, I’m an absolute pro at both.

Aside from the crazy things I’ve learned from my dad I’d like to offer up a very well deserved Thank You. Father, thank you for helping me to not ever have an inferiority as well as an image complex. You always helped me feel beautiful even when I was thin and gangly. Thank you for treating my mother with love and respect so I would have a basis of comparison so as to not accept anything less in the men I date. Thank you for being a mediator through out my teenage years and helping me learn how to calm down before I go into a situation with ‘guns blazing’. Thank you for never pulling a rifle on any of my dates and showing me the fine art of spilling food on myself any time I eat ANYTHING… I am my father’s daughter, and I’m utterly proud to be so!

Dad, thank you for being so stinking cool and for never asking me to turn down my music as a young adolescent, even if it WAS barely music. To you I am eternally indebted. You’ve been a pillar of strength through some pretty rocky times and I love you! You’re amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. Happy Father’s Day!

There is nothing like saying something in jest and having someone look at you like ‘how could you say that’ and realize that what you said not only really hit home, but there is a little if not a lot of truth to it as well. This is what I like to call ‘Foot in Mouth Syndrome’. I don’t suffer from it often, but when I do, I suffer hard core!

One of my favorite TV shows happens to be Scrubs. There is an episode where JD wonders what would happen if there was an opera singer to orchestrate when you’ve said something REALLY stupid or insensitive. You say your comment and without fail the opera singer belts out a well deserved ‘MISTAAAAAAAAKE’. I had such a moment last night.

Picture it: Provo, April 2008, I’m sitting in my living room with a few of my friends and we’re talking about our heritage. I happen to be Irish, and I was teasing a friend of mine for having the most Irish name possible without a single drop of Irish blood in him. He started telling me a story about how his grandfather was from Poland and was adopted and his name had been changed because of this. It then clicked in my brain that my friend was a Pollok and I asked him how many pall bearers were used at a Pollok funeral? Well there’s only two handles on a garbage can…Leave it to me to instantly bust out a Pollock joke, and ordinarily this would have been funny, until he told me that his very polish grandfather had just passed away and he happened to be one of the pall bearers. I could here the opera singer….MISTAAAAAAKE!

Picture it: Orem, January 2008, I was having a usual sarcasm spat with one of my buddies. This happens all the time so I usually think nothing about being a little rude, because it usually gets thrown right back at me. After verbally fighting for over an hour I ask him if he thought of doing something good for humanity and that sterility might be a very good option for him…. Only to find out 2 days later that particular day was the day he had surgery for testicular cancer…. MISTAAAAAAKE!

Picture it: various places in various time segments, unbeknownst to me, walking into a mourning crowd and then exclaiming ‘wow, it’s really dead in here’. Good one Erin!

I’m telling you, I don’t do it very often, but when I do, I do it up right! Every time I do it though, I just imagining the person taking a big ‘jerk’ stamp and stamping right on my forehead… one day I’ll learn to tune into situations like that and just keep my mouth shut.

I am in absolute awe at the wonderful job done by my friend John. He’s the one that gave my blog the amazing facelift! If you like his work, you can find him at areallygoodname.com. Thanks again man, you did good!

Every Tuesday after work I go to our ‘Service Night’. Usually we help tutor, read to, or just generally hang out and play with the kids. This is really fun especially when you find yourself playing with Barbie dolls and tripping heavily down memory lane. I wasn’t really into ‘Girl toys’ when I was little, but I did love playing with Barbies. Neither my friend Ashton nor I had played with Barbie dolls since the age of 10 maybe? But it was fun to jump right back in and dress them up and do their hair. After the ‘Barbie Fashion Show’ of 2008 had come to a close a couple of us thought it would be a good idea to play dress up and go for ice cream.

After going to the local grocery store in one of my old prom dresses for ice cream and receiving looks like ‘who the heck was that?’ and ‘why is she in a gold prom dress’? I just had to chuckle heartily because honestly, I think it’s completely healthy to indulge the inner-kid inside you every now and then. It’s how I keep my sanity sometimes. Whether people think I’m insane for doing so or not. I highly recommend doing things like that… always mess with their minds. It’s fun!

It just goes to show that you’re only young once, but you have the rest of your life to be immature.

In less then nine hours from now, I’ll be enjoying the amazing taste of Texas comfort or as it is more formally known as… Dr. Pepper.

As most of you know, I gave up Dr. Pepper for Lent. Thank goodness lent ends as of 12:01am Saturday because I was pretty close to going on a shooting rampage. That may be overstating it a bit but you get my drift.

I’m very excited about this, especially since I will finally be able to relax a little bit instead of trying to find alternate methods of doing so. I’m not the only one excited to enjoy the crisp taste of an ice cold Dr. Pepper. My friends, family and co-workers are just as, if not more excited for me to finally end this crazy crusade. Apparently I’m a lot easier to handle when I have my life source running through my blood stream and soothing my nerves.

All I have to say is that in theory, lent is a good idea but when you only have one vice, it’s not a good idea to give that one vice up. No sir. I’ll be back in action tomorrow and fully caffeinated! I must also thank someone who was the only person who stayed strong with me in my Lent observing endeavor.

Todd! Thank you for being just as addicted to Dr. Pepper as I am and staying strong with me through Lent. I may have shanghaied you into this but thank you for being such a good sport about it.

In my 25 years on the planet, I have been ‘one of the guys’ to my guy friends back home for about 21 of them. This has been interesting especially when I went through puberty and had the audacity to developed boobs and hips. All of a sudden I wasn’t a ‘guy’ anymore. The black balling and stripping of my ‘guy’ status only lasted for about a year and then I was welcomed back into the fold. Since then I’ve kept pretty good friends with ‘my boys’ as I call them and I enjoy still being a part of their lives. This leads to my story.

About a year ago my friend Kevin called me with some exciting news. Knowing my friend I figured it had something to do with the military or one of our other friends. I was wrong, but I was very excited to hear that he was getting married. I didn’t think anything of it because they weren’t getting married until the following May, so I put it in the back of my head.

Today I get an e-mail from my good friend Jon who is one of Kevin’s best friends, telling me about the wedding and asking me if I was available to go home to Oregon and be apart of the Bachelor party? Up until now I was reading and thinking ‘oh yeah, I need to get time off to go home and go to the wedding, what the? I’m invited to the bachelor party???’ at this point I was shaking my head because I couldn’t believe what I had just read. As if this wasn’t odd enough, he then continued on to say that it was ok, because they didn’t want me there to be the stripper, (like this was even close to being an option) glad we got that clarified.

On one hand I feel honored to be apart of a time honored and women banned tradition. But then on the other hand I don’t know if I want to witness all my guy friends from back home getting trashed and putting dollar bills down the stripper’s thong… or even worse, mistaking me for the entertainment. Trust me; no good would come from that.

I must admit, and aside from the invite, I love that I’m so ingrained as being ‘one of the guys’ to my boys back home that they don’t even think twice about inviting me to a bachelor party. To them I’m just Jarvis who looks oddly female-like. Booyah!

Finally! I broke down and did my laundry. I was previously doing an experiment on how much of my wardrobe I actually wear, and found out that I actually do cycle through most of my wardrobe, and that after 2 ½ months of avoiding the washing of my clothes, there isn’t much in my closet that I wouldn’t wear in broad daylight. The clothes that are left, I’m giving to goodwill.

So, on March 12, I loaded up my washing machine and started the grueling process of washing my clothes. I think the dryer knew what was coming because it took one look at all the piles of clothes before it, and decided that it just wasn’t going to have that and promptly stopped producing heat. Much to my dismay I had to cart all 10 loads over to my next door neighbor’s house so I could have dry clothes.

I’m not a very big person so I think to anyone watching this process it might have been humorous. People watching the little girl haul large amounts of clothes and all you see are the chicken legs beneath the massive heaps.

I think from now on I’ll be doing my laundry at least once a month. That way I’m not completely screwed should my dryer or washer decide to poop out on me again.

About 24 days, 12 hours, 15 minutes and roughly 42 seconds ago, I gave up Dr. Pepper for Lent. For those who are wondering the answer is ‘yes’ I am completely addicted to the stuff and I picked the wrong 40 days to give up my comfort and nerve relaxation method.

For those of you who have no idea what lent is, Lent is a catholic/Christian observation for the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. (For a link to a more in-depth explanation, just click somewhere on this sentence)

So this year, I decided my huge vice that I would give up this year would be Dr.Pepper. It just also happens to be the nectar of gods if not manna from heaven. Maybe I’m a little bias but it is the best beverage on the planet.

I think the universe looks forward to the time of Lent, because we are much more aware of the stress in our daily lives when we don’t have those ‘security blankets’ of ours any more. I’m beginning to wonder if the universe adds additional stress and weird scenarios just to see how committed we are to staying off of our vices. Due to work and school, I feel like I’m at the end of my rapidly fraying rope while not being able to comfort myself with an ice cold Dr.Pepper… mean whilst the universe is rolling on the floor laughing it’s bum off and probably saluting me with it’s middle finger.

I hope the universe gets his that smug jerk!

I’ve been pondering recently about how guy’s products are not only cheaper but they are better quality. For example, my new (guys) razor; it was cheaper than my last razor, it has one more blade then my previous one and it does a better job! Next on my list is shaving cream… does the exact same job (and even helps with razor burn) with ½ the price. Hmmm, let me think about that brain buster for a while…

I’m paying for a crappier product only because it’s pink and smells like my aunts garden. I can go to the coast and get soap that smells like my hippie brother that’ll still do a better job and is still cheaper. Hey corporate America, way to target the insecurity of the female psyche!

Why are these products not only better, but half the price as woman’s products? After using the razor and shaving cream, I started branching out to other things that might offer the same type of satisfaction if not less from women’s products, but much cheaper. My first experiment was with undershirts. I’m sad to say that to find a decent undershirt for a female; it will usually cost you around $7 ea. That’s per tank top/undershirt. Ok, that’s ridiculous especially since they sometimes make them with a built-in bra so as to forgo any pesky straps… good idea in theory but they make them with a padded-I’m-blinking-cleavage-all-day filler that isn’t as comfortable as you might think. I was blown away that I could find a pack of 12 guy undershirts, for only $10 dollars. That is less than a dollar per undershirt!

I was flabbergasted and was wondering what else lived inside the realm of boys clothing, when I saw them… underwear. Now for the most part, if you want underwear that lasts, you can find ONE pair of underwear for anywhere from $3-6 dollars. This is for the kind that won’t fall apart after a few wears. Utter dismay hit when I found 7 pairs of tighty-whitey-won’t-ride-up-your-butt-all-day, long-lasting-comfort, for how much again? $6!!! WTF?? You’ve got to be kidding me! In the ‘girl world’ I can buy 5 pairs for $25. That’s $25 that I can take and purchase 35 pairs of underwear that don’t have the word ‘juicy’ printed on the bum or itchy lace! 35 pairs of underwear that I can feel cute and good about myself for wearing despite the fact that they are made for guys! If Carrie Bradshaw can do dang-it so can I!

Don’t get me wrong I still like looking and feeling like a girl but to spend money on stuff that A. doesn’t really get seen and B. is sooooooo much cheaper? That’s a ‘No Brainer’ in my book!

I was sitting at work bored off my rocker today. It’s was an unusually slow Friday, so in my boredom I went to the Google homepage to see if there might be something to help my current condition. I was looking at my options as far as images, news, maps etc. when maps caught my eye.

It’s not very often that I look things up on Google maps, but being as homesick as I’ve been, I thought I’d look a few things up. I started with my apartment here in Utah, and gradually grazed over to my home in Oregon. From my house in Oregon I drove using the arrows to friend’s houses and finally found my self at my old high school.

I was looking at the aerial view of Good Old North Salem High School (if you click on the link, it should send you to the roof of the building) when I realized due to my adolescent negligence, I probably know the ‘aerial’ view a lot better then the actual ‘standing in front of the building’ view.

I zoomed (a better look at rooftop) in a little bit closer and got a really good view of the roof that I had spent so much time climbing. When you’re up there at night, there is a spot on the roof that looks like an old time dance floor and with the lights on it, it looks like you’re in an old ballroom. There are windows that cover one side and at night they act as mirrors…. Very cool!

If you go up a level (usually by taking a sturdy sweatshirt to help hoist yourself up) you have two options, you can 1. Climb a little further to the black top roof and go paint the bell tower base or play paintball of the roof. 2. Stay on the white top and go over to the turtle back looking cover, bust the lock using bolt cutters and shimmy/repel down the 40 feet of cable and voila! You’re in the auditorium.

I remember finely tuning my lock picking techniques on the doors of that old school. We’d break in, and as long as you kept to the left, the sensors couldn’t reach you. I should add a disclaimer about any property damage that was done. We were respectful.

There was this one rumor about my school that was built circa 1910 ish. During the wars supposedly our building had a bomb shelter, Rumor has it that a student was playing around and was trapped inside there and ether died or was seriously hurt. Shortly after this incident, they expanded the grounds and added the cafeteria; the cafeteria was supposedly where our ‘bomb shelter’ was located. This is not true, in fact the cafeteria can be used as a fall out shelter but the actual bomb shelter is located near by and after finding the enterance during one of our excursions one night, one of my friends decided to break into it. It was somthing he ‘had to do’ before we graduated.  My friend found papers from the 1940’s and 1950’s. It’s pretty crazy.

So many good memories of that place…mostly after-hour ‘good times’ but what’s a little adventure here and there?