Open Letters.

I have a new obsession. There is this website called "McSweeney's Open Letters" ... Okay it's called something else but it's long and I didn't want to type it. Anyhow. This portion of the website publishes weekly "open letters" from readers/contributors who are extremely articulate and often times extremely bitter. The letters are long, but boy are they worth reading. I almost copied and posted the entire letter from last Friday onto this blog, not because I am a copy catter, but because I wanted to share my joy with you. I'll spare you the wordiness, but I will post my favorite quote from Friday's letter instead. This letter was written as an "open letter to TV snobs," as in... people who think they are better than you because they only watch educational TV or don't own a TV at all.

So to the TV snobs:
"You should probably confine your social activity to sitting in the drawing room with your like-minded friends, drinking sherry and saying things like “tut tut, old chap.” Because the rest of us don’t want to explain to you what extreme wrestling is while you sneer like someone just farted on your ascot."



OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I could not have said it better myself. Thank you, passiveaggresivenotes.com, for introducing me to McSweeney's Open Letters.

I shall never be the same.

Also.

I have read nearly all of them.

Go on. Read the whole thing: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-tv-snobs

Sleep and the Lack Thereof

Sleep has escaped me for the last two nights in a row.

TWO nights ago, I fell asleep with all my clothes on, on top of my bed, with all my lights on. And I kept waking up every hour... but I was never awake enough to turn off my lights. All I knew at the time was that something was amiss and it was making it hard for me to sleep. Waking up didn't really feel like waking up because it felt like I had been awake all night.

Then LAST night, I decided to get ready for bed at like 10:30ish in hopes of making up for lost sleep time. My bed was still perfectly made from not being slept in the night before, so you can imagine my horror when I looked down and saw a really beefy spider just chilling in the middle of my bed spread. That's right. A beefy spider. It wasn't moving, but it was probably the size of a nickel. I weighed my options after rescuing my laptop from its peripheral danger zone and decided I was just going to have to squish it right on my bed.

RIGHT ON MY BED! The horror.

I very cautiously snuck up on it and smacked it with one of my less dirty sandals. Luckily it died on impact. I then dry heaved as I picked it up with a tissue. There were some spider guts left on my bed spread but it was toward the bottom... and I was desperate for sleep, so I just got back in my bed and read my scriptures. As soon as I was done reading, out of the corner of my eye I saw a SECOND beefy spider crawling out of a crack in my window frame.

I'm convinced that the second spider was actually just the first spider's evil soul coming back from spider hell to haunt me. Seriously. It looked just like the first spider, but it was RED. Shiver. It looked kind of like this:





Anyway. With the devil spider in hot pursuit of my person, I did some crazy ninja roll out of my bed. And then, I watched little Satan jump from my wall INTO MY SHEETS!!!!!

I panicked and started shaking my sheets vigorously.... and the spider looked like it fell behind my bed, but I couldn't be sure. I spent the next 10 minutes shaking out my bedspread and trying to move my bed away from the wall, which resulted in my bed falling off its risers and crashing down toward the ground. I spent another 10 minutes trying to put my bed back where it belonged without letting the AWOL spider "get" me.

I never found the spider. And I was PISSED. I was so tired. I just wanted to freaking sleep in my bed, but I knew I wouldn't be able to after the red spidey went rogue.

I thought about sleeping on my floor. I tried sleeping on my couch. And then I tried sleeping on my love sack. And then I finally resigned and got back in my bed. My half-slumber was punctuated by violent twitches every time I felt something tickle any part of my body. I don't think it was ever the spider touching me, but it kept me from sleeping nonetheless.

Spiders need to go. I feel a "things that must go" blog post coming on....

Don't worry... I made this.

Out of a bamboo cutlery sorter, wooden dowels, screw-in hooks and hot glue. Inspired by pinterest. Sometimes I just randomly craft. Don't be jealous. But also, be jealous.

WHY???????????

Why do random links for male enhancement keep popping up on my blog?? I hate this. Now I have to go wipe all my settings because I don't know which one is infected.....

***UPDATE; I found the culprit HTML. But now my blog is vanilla. I'll have to fix that later. Over and out.***

So what happened to July?

What happened to July?? Oh I'll tell you.

• July 5th-8th: Booth Family Boating Extravanganza minus the boat and plus drama.
• I bought a car.
• I started running every other day. And I have only missed one day.
• I lost 1% of my total body fat. I have a fancy scale...
• I have been researching/starting the application process for my winter internship.
• I have been slowly gathering school supplies.
• I saw the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7.2
• I went through all my clothes and D.I.-ed a HUGE garbage bag full.
• I organized my laundry situation.
• I started doing yoga again with a vengeance.
• Work work work work work work.

And much much more.

I've been too exhuasted to blog.

The end.

E.T. and Swamp Coolers

That blog title just forced my brain to picture E.T. hiding inside of my swamp cooler so now I'm going to have issues. But whatever.


I would just like to say that I am obsessed with the song "E.T." by Katy Perry and I don't care who knows it.

...But NOT the version with Kanye West, because he is a dirty vulgar fool.

...And the video is creepy and there is a naked butt at the end.

...But I still love the song.

...Despite this:



Sorry. I could write a whole blog post about that song and video, but then I wouldn't be able to call it "E.T. and Swamp Coolers" so I guess I've made my choice.

I am an awesome swamp cooler technitian and yes that is something to be jealous of and no it is not white trash sounding at all. It is also obviously opposite day.

I moved into a little old house in provo.... which I adore when the mutant bees aren't trying to kill me and as long as I never get trapped in the death sauna also known as the loft. And don't you worry your little face, I pay less in utilities here during the summer than I ever did while living in the wonderful Aretta Gardens. I think this has a lot to do with the heat-sucking loft and our trusty old swamp cooler. Sometimes I wonder if the swamp cooler is actually just blowing mold particles into our 80 year old living space, but then I force myself not to think about it and everything's cool.

The one problem with the swamp cooler, let us call him swampy.... is that he leaks water alllllll over the back porch if the water pressure from the outside faucet hook up is not calibrated just so. And when I say he leaks water, what I really mean is that a pond forms on the uneven concrete of our back porch. And when I say "pond" I mean a legitimate pond with worms and algae. Not acceptable.

So, I routinely have to adjust the water pressure and place preventative flower pots and planters under the swamp cooler to catch any rogue drips and drops. I also have to open a giant, heavy hatch on the side of swampy and peek inside to check the water level to make sure there is enough to keep it cooling. Sometimes I wish I had never seen the inside. It's ugly in there. And now every time I open it I am going to be scared of seeing this:



Which would be my very worst nightmare.

The end.