Love the Life you Live, Live the Life you Love

Sunday night and I find myself again at Kaldi's doing work (blogging). I walk in and sit in my usual spot and to my delight - Mr. Angry Pizza Man was sitting across from me! He must be a regular, too. We exchanged "oh you again" glances and I sat down and did my work, giddy as he kept checking his phone. Perhaps he was waiting for a phone call! One can only wish. It was too good to be true, his phone rang a few minutes later. I paused my furious typing to eavesdrop on the latest. Sure enough, there was that tone again. The "keep calm I'm in a pubic place" tone where he precisely articulates all stops, fricatives, plosives, hyper articulates vowels. It's brilliant! He should have been a speech pathologist. Maybe if he weren't so angry all the time. I'll skip over the boring stuff and skip straight to the juicy goods: "No. You had your chance when I was TRYING to talk to you this morning and earlier yesterday when I was trying to tel...

Yesterday I went on Cor Jesu's Vivare "young alumni" retreat. My friend from high school Katie posted it on my wall a few weeks ago and tagged a couple other CJ sisters to the post and it struck my interest. I haven't done a single thing with CJ since I graduated and somewhere between moving to Boston and joining the triathlon team my Catholic past was put on the backburner. I figured I had nothing to lose except a Saturday and at the very least I'd get to hang out with my friends so I signed up and sent in my $25 without much thought.  I've never been the most devout Catholic. Most times in church I'm scanning the crowd for familiar faces, zoning out, and making Target lists- and that's if I go at all. Sunday is usually run-day...or ski day. Or sleep in day. Or study day. Or vacuum day. Whatever day it is...it's rarely church day. Despite being raised by two Catholic parents, going to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school, going o...

So Kirkwood library - sorry, library  consortium - is the best for studying, but if you're looking for the Kirkwood drama it's all at Kaldi's. I'm pretty sure I just witnessed a breakup. I only say pretty sure because they weren't speaking English so, lacking a Hindi translator, I can only go off my impeccable ability to read body language. Nothing ruins a latte with a cute little foam drawing of a bird or a tree like the ending of an era - I would know. Of all the break up spots - and I've had many - the coffee shop one is the worst. It's hard to hide drama from the judgmental eyes of fellow coffee drinkers, must less keep your tone to 'latte level'. Trying to keep the volume low and tone pleasant makes everything sound condescending, especially if you try to keep a smile on your face. Things tend to get eyebrow-ey. The best place for a solid break up is on your front porch. On the front porch you can throw things, scream, stomp (and it makes a ni...

I found my study spot. Here I was naively scouting out the best places to thesis edit, blog, do classwork, and lesson plan in all the different typical places in Kirkwood and the best spot was right up the street from me: Kirkwood library! I'm meticulously picky when it comes to "my spot" - Sheldon Cooper has nothing on me. Once I find the perfect study location I will hunker down for days, only getting up to eat, take a bathroom break, and ask an employee what day it is. Freshman and sophomore year of college it was the dining hall. Junior year it was Blue State coffee on Commonwealth ave. Senior year it was the 2nd floor study lounge in my apartment building. First year of grad school it was my cubicle. I'm not sure which fibers in my brain connect to tell the rest of my brain that this is the spot, but without a doubt it happens at the beginning of every semester. And once I sat down in the classic wooden chairs in the corner of Kirkwood library - I knew I was ...

Saturday night I went to a party. That could be a story enough for my post considering the extent of what my social life has looked like the past 2 years of graduate school in Utah (drinking a margarita sitting on my couch while doing work in my sweatpants surrounded by my dogs. Or if things get really crazy...drinking beer with Kate while making a pizza in my sweatpants surrounded by my dogs and Kate's dog). I passed my SLP Praxis exam Saturday afternoon and despite the fact that I would know all of 2 people at this party and it was a "villian" dress-up party...I was ready for a night out - any night out. I would have agreed to sipping red wine at BINGO with grandma if that's what was offered. I just needed to get out of my Miniwanca sweatpants, away from my bed, still covered in various notes and studyguides and flashcards, and be among the living again. I also was starting to hold lengthy, philosophical, very satisfying conversations with my dog, Luna. Enough w...

It took me no less than 20 minutes to sign into my blog account today-  partially because it has been approximately 345 days since my last sign-in and partially because a very angry man across the table from me was yelling at his friend on the phone that he absolutely, without a doubt, one hundred percent did NOT want pizza for dinner. He articulated every vowel and consonant so precisely that I haven't the foggiest notion as to why the poor fellow on the other side of the line didn't clearly receive the message the first time the guy announced it to the whole coffee shop. The conversation, entertaining for me and uncomfortable for everyone else within a mile radius, went on for several minutes....leading me to almost put the lad out of his misery and offer to go eat pizza with his friend in his place. "Here. You just sit here and continue to mumble to yourself over your notebook full of, I'm sure, earth shattering thoughts, drink your low-fat, no sugar, skim milk am...

FINALLY found a badass chica to hit the slopes with! YEAH! Yesterday the visibility was about 0 but it was a solid day at Snowbasin. I took my GoPro along with me and then edited it into a video that looks semi-interesting. That's Kate on the snowboard, the camera is attached to my head so you get a solid look at the fog and me falling a few times. Skiing/Snowboarding Movie