Nostalgia Update

For the record, Simba and Hayley (from this post) are still living contentedly in my box of childhood. Turns out, I really couldn't bear to part with them, and I did in fact go home and rescue them from the D.I. bag.

I'm a sucker for my own memories, and I'm not quite so cold-hearted yet that I can just throw those out.

Simba and Hayley live on for another round of weeding-out-childhood-memories.

What happens at night...gets posted on the blog

Once upon a time, Roommate downloaded this app that changes your voice. So you make a recording and then select a filter and listen to yourself sound all kinds of crazy. The first time she ever used it, she nearly scared the pee out of me. 

It was Saturday night, about 10:00. I'd just walked in the apartment from after my temple shift and noticed her door was closed. That's normal. She's often in bed before I get home. As I'm passing her door, I hear this super creepy, echoing, maniacal laughter, and the acoustics in our hallway made it almost impossible to pinpoint the sound, so it was alarming.

Before I could actually transition from confused alarm to genuine terror, however, Roommate couldn't help herself: she started giggling from behind her door. Ah yes. I should have known she'd be pranking me. Again. She'd recorded herself doing an evil laugh, and then applied a "Villain" filter to it to make it even better.

Anyway, we've played with the voice changer app several times, and usually, since we tend to only do it way too late at night, we laugh way too hard.

Last night, Roommate had had a pretty bad day, and I'd had a busy one, dealing with the stress of packing and prepping for my move. And, you know, Groundhog Day celebrations and all. So we didn't see each other much until around 11:00 at night. Frayed nerves, wacky hormonal levels, and lack of sleep set us off laughing our heads off. 

And then she sneakily pulled out the voice changer app and started recording us. This video is the clip she sent me, with the "drunk" filter applied to it. I promise, we were not actually drunk, nor did it sound quite this bad in real life. The filter is very good. She took a picture for good measure, I guess.

For reference (if you need it) I'm the one telling a story about a gob of spit.

Yes, that story is true. Roommate is mostly just laughing.

And I totally understand if this is only funny to the two of us. We were both desperately in need of a laugh, and my ribs ache a little bit today from laughing until tears were streaming from my eyes.

The reason I share it at all is because I'm deeply grateful for best friends, with whom it is perfectly acceptable to be a complete weirdo (also, apologies to Brian for calling him a weirdo in this video. We love him, really, we do).

And while I love change and I'm excited by the prospect of moving and getting a fresh start, I do end up carrying around a lot of stress and tension. If I didn't have an outlet, it would get pretty bad. So I'm really grateful for fits of laughter, stupid stories, and ridiculous apps that make us sound more punch-drunk wacky than we actually are.

Incidentally, I had one guy accuse me of being too serious and too intense. I think this puts that to rest once and for all. Although this might scare him off, too. Oh well. :)

Christmas Trees and Blonde Moments

Hi guys! I'm back again! Remember all that free time I said I had? Yep. Still have it. Cleaning my apartment and sending out resumes only takes up so much time when Roommate is gone. Also, I'm sort of  procrastinating taking my Christmas tree down.

Yes, it's the 9th of January. Judge me.

It's just so pretty. Did I ever show you a picture? No? Well here you go:

'Spretty, no?

Roommate picked out the colors this year, and I'm a big fan of them. Which is why I'm procrastinating taking it down. One month is not long enough to savor a lovely Christmas tree. But don't worry, I will take it down. This week. I think. Maybe.

In other news, the job hunt is going well. At least, my resumes are procuring interviews, so that's awesome. I'm just making sure I'm staying occupied during my downtime. It is nice to have the freedom to get a lot of things done without having to schedule them in minute-by-minute into an already-full day.

Oh my gosh this post is boring.

Let's see... how to spice things up...

Shall I tell you my recent blonde moment? Yes, I think I shall.

So once upon a time, my father bought a Blu-Ray player. Ever since then, he has been praising its superiority up and down. I'm a bit of a movie purist myself, so I can see his point. I finally put "blu-ray player" on my own Christmas wishlist (and Dad, being beyond awesome, actually got one for me, even though it was the priciest thing on my list—Dad, you're the best). I'd gotten smart and started buying blu-ray/DVD combos of new movies since the price difference was like, fifty cents.

Then I got a blu-ray player for Christmas. And had a panic attack.

WHAT ABOUT MY REGION 2 DVDS??? (Because I'm impatient and couldn't wait for BBC to release Merlin seasons 4 and 5 in the States) I SPECIFICALLY HAVE A REGION-FREE DVD PLAYER FOR THEM! OH NOES! I'm going to have to replace them with American DVDs or Blu-rays. THAT'S GOING TO COST SO MUCH!

Seriously.

It was stressing me out so bad. Yes, I'm aware that it's hilarious that I reached a stress breaking-point over movies. The things that rile us up, honestly.

Anyway, the brick dropped on my head right about then.

Duh, Lynnae. You can have more than one device plugged in. It's not like you have to throw away the other one just because you got a shiny new blu-ray player. You're a moron.

So the silly girl plugged both devices in, and now she can watch her region 2 DVDs, her blu-rays, and her boring normal DVDs whenever she wants. Ta-da!

That's my story.

And hopefully that's the diztiest thing I'll do this month.

No promises though.

I Can't Read!

So I made a somewhat distressing discovery recently. I can't read anymore.

Okay, obviously, I still have the ability to read (and write... I hope). But I just can't sit down, open a great book, and read for hours on end. Even if that book is a page-turner (and the one I'm trying to read right now does, in fact, fall into that category). No matter how much I like the book, I'll put it down after 10-15 minutes.

I'M BROKEN!

Why has the voracious bookworm's appetite died? Turns out this is a completely unforeseen side effect of being a proofreader. We've been reading aloud in teams of two through ALL of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

Yes, I just finished reading the Old and New Testaments. Probably for the first time in my life. (Okay, second, but I got nothing out of it when I read them for seminary.)

But I suppose when you're reading for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it tends to overload even my insatiable appetite for reading. As a result, I have no attention span for reading anymore.

And I hate it.

I don't hate reading. I still know that I love it. I just can't do it anymore.

Curses.

Oh, and incidentally, I also can't read aloud anymore. Not in any situations where I'm required to read the way a normal person would, anyway. Because as a proofreader, I'm now used to reading every piece of punctuation, every footnote, every capital letter and italic word... you know, all of it.

So once upon a time, I sat in class at church. Being the contributor that I am, I volunteered to read a quote when the teacher asked. Okay, brain, here's the deal, don't read any commas, okay? You're not proofing right now. So I read along great, managing to tell myself not to read the commas and still reading the words at the same time. Then I got to the period at the end of the sentence. "Point"! You're supposed to say "point" for a period! My brain was practically screaming at me, and I froze. What do I do if I don't say it? How on earth will people know that the sentence is over and I'm starting a new one? Wait. They don't know what "point" means. It's okay. But what do I say instead? OHMYGOSH I've forgotten everything I knew about reading out loud like a normal person! (Keep in mind, I'm still in the middle of reading this quote, and a longish awkward pause is starting to ensue as I pause to have this mental war with myself. Hopefully they just thought I was overcome with emotion at the beauty of the quote...) Okay, skip the point. Don't read the capped letter. Just get through this last, stupid sentence, and Never. Read. Out. Loud. Again. And thus ended the most stressful seconds of my life. The stupid part is that I was just reading a quote in class. Last time I checked, that's not supposed to be a major cause of stress.

So yeah. I can't read. It's great. (Not.)

On the other hand, I find stuff like this uproariously funny now. Because that's basically how it works. (Sadly though, the sounds are less fun than the ones he makes...)



So, what do you do with a broken bookworm who can't read anymore? Why, take her to see The Avengers, of course. And there you have my grand plans for tonight. :)

Tiny Hammers

I'm glad that I've reached a happy medium with life right now, because my seasonal allergies decided to kick in and holyheck! They are vicious!

I came into work this morning after almost suffering an allergy attack on the bus and, after getting to my floor, I discovered that I needed to run an errand and go down the elevator again. Remember how those elevator cars move super fast and the height of the building makes my ears pop sometimes? Multiply that "pop" by ten and move it to my nose when there's a sinus headache involved.

I'm glad I was alone in the elevator, because it would have been difficult to explain to total strangers why I suddenly grabbed my face and gasped, blinking back the sudden flurry of tears. They probably would have thought that I'd just been pummeled by something invisible. Well, it felt like I was---by a vicious, invisible little fairy living in my sinus cavities and banging around with its tiny hammer. And it was probably laughing maniacally the whole time.

I'm sure it made whoever's on the other end of those security cameras laugh anyway. Good thing I don't have to explain to them. Or see them. Ever.

Going up the elevator isn't so bad. Pressure decreases when you go up. But going down? Yeah. Let's just say that I'm not leaving this floor until I'm walking out at the end of the day. I'm not subjecting myself to the vindictive fairy's tiny hammer more times than I absolutely have to.

Good thing I like life right now. Otherwise it would be a lot harder to laugh at this. :)

I promise, life isn't that bad at the moment, though. I'm not complaining. On the contrary, I'm feeling pretty content again, thanks to an amazing Sunday. I'll see if I can find a way to make the mundane everyday stuff I'm doing at work now sound interesting. Look for it coming to a blog post near you.

Starstruck

Working in the Church Office Building comes with its own unique set of chance encounters. Like running into General Authorities.

Some of you might be surprised and think that I would be rubbing shoulders with them every day, but that's definitely not the case. They're busy men. Most of the time, when we deliver paperwork to them, we only ever see their secretaries.

Well, yesterday, I had to take a magazine layout design to Elder L. Tom Perry for approval. So I sauntered over to the Church Administration Building (another myth to debunk: only the Presiding Bishopric has offices in the Office Building), cheerfully told the security guard what my business was, and found Elder Perry's office, fully expecting to be greeted by his secretary.

Only... there wasn't anyone at the desk. There was the desk. Her nameplate. Elder Perry's nameplate. No secretary. But the door to the left of the desk was open, and I could hear voices, so I peeked around the corner and tapped lightly on the doorframe. Elder Perry turned around and said, "Well, hello!"

And at that moment, my mind decided to run through all the most useless information it possibly could: my skirt is too casual. My hair is flat. My hands seemed completely alien to me. Whoa, he's really tall. Are boots okay to wear to work? Thank goodness I'm wearing my favorite shirt.

Oh hey, I have papers in my hands. That grounded me. The only thing I could manage to get out of my mouth was a description of why I was there: I have design layout approvals for him from the New Era.

Elder Perry, hoping to put me at ease, I think, made a joke: "At first I thought you were here to lay me out [as in, flat]."

You know how I have that sometimes witty sense of humor that I got from my dad? Yeah, I think it took a vacation or something. A warp-speed, spur-of-the-moment trip to Bermuda, leaving me completely stranded without it. My brain, still caught up in the "whoa he's tall" loop scanned up his roughly 6'4" height and could only smirk: "Laying him out would be unlikely." But of course, nothing---and I mean absolutely nothing---came out my mouth.

Plus, I couldn't even shake his hand. My hands were full of papers. And for lack of any verbal repartee, all I could do was give the papers to him, which meant that his hands were then full of papers. No handshake.

So, still feeling a little disoriented---because apparently my brain subsequently decided to follow my humor to Bermuda---I turned horrifyingly awkwardly and left the room, hurrying back to the snug security of my job where I knew exactly what I'm doing and how to do it.

I felt like a fangirl or something. Normally, I'm really good around authority figures. I'm not easily intimidated or cowed. When I have a reason to be somewhere, I'm comfortable being there. But this is one of the authority figures. And the situation was far from protocol.

But this story isn't over.

As soon as I got back up to my floor, one of the employees stopped me and asked if I'd ever delivered to the First Presidency. No, I hadn't. Well, since it's a little bit trickier than your average tell-the-guard-and-find-the-secretary procedure, she had me turn right back around and come with her. As we walked back into the Church Administration Building, who should be coming out but Elder Perry!

I didn't entirely mean to, but I subconsciously took half a step to the side so that I was partly behind the other Magazines employee. He saw me anyway. And in his usual, cheerful, Elder Perry style, he greeted both of us and complimented us on being beautiful young women. (Oh good, the skirt wasn't such a travesty of informality after all, and apparently the hair was okay, too.) We smiled and thanked him and passed on by. Side note: He's still super tall.

And that, my friends, is my not-so-glorious first encounter with a General Authority.

Oh, and I almost bumped into Bishop Burton this morning on my way to the elevators, but I sidestepped to the other badge-entry-gate and smiled (remarkably composedly) at him on my way past. A much better experience, if you ask me. :)