that other life

On Wednesday we took Kaylie down to BYU to begin her freshman year. Walking down the hall of her dorm (not my dorm, but so very close*) brought back a lot of memories. It's always fun to walk around campus, too, even though it was very hot.

Earlier this month I thought about making a post saying how much I still miss BYU -- that I watched my ballet girls on TV dancing to Adagio and nearly cried -- and how it pained me to see Kaylie not excited at all, but I'm over it and so is she. That's not what this post is about.

I got to thinking about all the cool new things Kaylie will get to do in the next week or so. Eating at the Cannon Center, making new friends, her ward opening social...

I remember when I was meeting people, it was hard to get to know them on any level more than just superficially -- what's your major, where are you from, how many kids are in your family -- so when this one guy, after we exchanged the pleasantries, told me about his website and said that it would be a pretty good gauge of his personality and who he was, I was favorably impressed.

Last night, remembering that experience, I thought, "I should have something like that! One place where someone can go to be introduced to who I am, a creative funny person that likes the things I like!"

Then I thought, Well, there's the blog. I could write an introduction post there; that would introduce people. Then they could do what Richie did and read the whole archives. It could work.

But here's my problem! I try to be honest about who I am and only ever sound really negative. I feel like my good qualities will speak for themselves but I need to warn people about the bad ones. When I started writing an introduction in my head, I just cringed. It's not the way these things are supposed to work.

So I've decided to hold off on finding one thing that will familiarize people with me, for now. While it was cool for that one guy to do it so adroitly, most folks just let acquaintance grow. That's what will work for Kaylie, and it should work for me.


"In Another Life"

*While Kyra lived on my very same floor, Kaylie decided to branch out and try the hall next door. It used to be a boy's hall -- so recently, in fact, that all the signs say "Men." But she lives on the same numbered floor, and in the corresponding room number where I used to live there's someone named Leslie.

the sky is bright with stars

I'd never seen a shooting star before. Not from lack of effort -- I remember going out and lying on our lawn last year for a few minutes, but I wasn't looking when one came along and I didn't really like doing stuff last August. So I gave up. That's pretty typical of my meteor shower experiences.

Thursday night, though, was great. It was midnight. We gathered all the blankets and trudged outside into the chill. I ended up putting my blanket behind the others. Kevin and Kyra on the right, Kaylie and Richie on the left, with my legs between the two couples.

I loved lying there, staring up at the Milky Way. There were no feelings of insignificance as I stared at the vast expanse of space (I checked), but it was still so very beautiful, all those spots of light. The whole neighborhood was absolutely dark.[1]

My eyes were playing tricks on me; since I'd never seen a shooting star, I didn't now what I was looking for. My contacts were slightly fuzzy, so I could see little streaks of light from staring up at the sky and I thought perhaps that might be what I was looking for.

We lay there in relative silence for a while. I thought about how much I like stargazing, but I wouldn't want to do it alone. I'd especially like someone next to me, keeping me warm but also watching the sky with the same intensity as me. I was glad enough to have the other people there but there was a bit of fifth-wheel going on.

Eventually we saw some awesome shooting stars. We saw quite a few, actually, in the hour or so that I laid out there. I can never complain that I've never seen one again.

I had much better thoughts lying there that night, but a day and a half has disintegrated them into little more than stardust. Whatever they were, I really wanted to tell someone but couldn't think of someone that would actually want to hear about it, so I determined to make a blog post. Even though I can't remember them, thought I'd make a post anyway. I really enjoyed the experience.

"Mission Street"


[1]Except for the light in our shed, which we noticed was on after a while. That led to a good conversation about what we would do if we got attacked.

powerlines draped across roads you could drive on for days

Last week it was time for another life-changing trip to Kansas. We drove out via I-80, which we'd never done before.

That was an exciting morning. When we got to Bear Lake we had to pull over to the side of the road so I could expunge the nutella sandwich I'd had for breakfast. It was great. Five minutes later my mom hit a bunny rabbit. We saw so many rabbits on the highway. Most of them actually on the highway.

Ooh, in Logan Canyon I actually saw a live skunk. Never seen one of them before. Lots of wildlife early in the morning!

Then I got to drive. Mom could actually sleep while I was driving. When the other girls drove she had to stay alert. Ha.

We had a good day driving halfway across the country. Nebraska is somehow prettier than eastern Colorado/western Kansas. Eastern Kansas is also beautiful. Mom and I had fun playing "hinky pinky" and staying awake.

Exciting adventures were had! On Tuesday we went to visit one of my colleagues. We'd worked together for nearly a year and never met, and since she lives about half an hour from my grandma's house, we decided it was an opportunity to see each other in person. So we packed the kids in and dumped them in the lake for a while!
Wednesday we went on a road trip to Ha Ha Tonka State Park. We did a few hikes and did a good job even though it was another long car ride. There's a castle there!

One funny thing that happened on the trip was Kiana looked out the window (I believe this was in Nebraska, or maybe Wyoming) and said, "Hey, cows!" Not sure why she was so excited since we see cows all the time. The funny part was, they weren't cows. They were hay bales. We called them "hay cows" the rest of the trip.


"Kansas" ~ Vienna Teng
(what else?)