feeling a bit broken, bruised in places and hoping to be able to heal and keep moving forward as planned...that is all

S.

spirit or irrational obsession?

I had two bad days in a row, which doesn't often happen to me. They had me melancholy, retracted, confused, and frustrated enough that I have spent some small amount of time trying to figure out the root cause rather than just waiting for the feeling of gloom to pass. Typically my psychological makeup is such that things just roll off my back and I can move on with life, but when things stick I know there's something up. There's also the fact that a stupor of thought typically leaves me with similar feelings of confusion and frustration, so there's the possibility that there's something the Spirit wants me to do differently.

Salad has talked to me before about the bone-deep desire she has to teach, and how frustrating it is that she can't find a teaching job. Some measure of that desire blindsided me on Wednesday, except that my passion and my desire lie in singing. I have been taking voice lessons for quite a while, I've been in choirs since high school, and it's typically been enough for me. All of a sudden I have this ache to do something with my singing, though. I don't know that being in choir will be enough to fill it. It's like...I want to be in a musical, or working on writing music specific to me, that I could sing and that would be mine.

Part of my frustration is that I buried my dreams of musical grandeur a while back. Music is not a logical career path, so I convinced myself that I wasn't going to pursue it as anything more than a side hobby. Part of that was reasoning that choir was okay, because it was a joint commitment between all the members of the choir, but that any solo pursuits were essentially pointless. Two days of frustration have thrown all of that out of whack in my mind. Why not do more with what I have? Would it have to be to the exclusion of more logical pursuits, or could they be done at the same time? Would it be wrong or selfish of me to want to pursue music with a bit more gusto? And if I did decide to do more with music right now, how would I go about it? I don't know the first thing about the things that would probably satiate this feeling.

And then I have to wonder if this is really Spirit spurring me on, like it mostly feels like, or if it's my own obsessive nature shining through randomly. And is there a whole lot more to my melancholy and overall feeling of BLAH, or is this the root of the problem? Am I spinning my wheels even thinking about it?

Meh.

In other news, Hairspray was fantastic, fabulous, and amazing.

I'm not dead yet!

So, I’ve found that I really don’t like sitting still and doing nothing. I’m not so much a fan of my job and I know there are things that I’d rather be doing, but sitting at home with nothing to do is not one of them. Having pneumonia and bronchitis has left me with little energy and not so much lung capacity so I’ve spent the last few days on my couch doing nothing and it’s driving me insane! I’m still really bitter that my boss was irresponsible enough to come in to work when he won’t even let us stay in the office if we have the slightest sniffle. I get random spurts of energy but they fade quickly and I usually end up in a heap on my floor trying not to pass out—not so much a fun game.

As I’m sitting on my couch watching LAME tv (because my cable is broken) I’m trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it to try and go move some more stuff over to our new apartment. I’m really excited about it and I can’t wait to get settled. It’s so empty and not us and I want to get all of our stuff in there and make it ours. Unfortunately we need a truck to get some of that done so we need to wait. We moved all of my books over there last night and I insisted on vacuuming all the carpets before we put anything on them—that was one of my random spurts of energy. I kind of want to move clothes over and clean the bathrooms but I don’t know how long my energy will last. Mostly I just want to get the heck out of my house.

Wedding plans are going well. I finally succeeded in getting Drex’s mom to get her pink shirt which she wasn’t so much a fan of getting initially. We’re working on the flowers for DC and I have to get the flowers taken care of for here but other than that, we’re pretty much on top of everything. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at our reception.

Ok, I’m going to go back to weighing the pros and cons of moving stuff on my own, but I thought I’d let you all know that I’m still sort of alive.

S.

life update

It occurs to me that we haven't really blogged about how things are going in general. Salad's sick, as mentioned before - our boss will send us home with so much as a headache, sniffle, or cough - and yet he came in for three straight days with bronchitis and pneumonia. Despite Salad confronting him on it, and despite the fact that our coworker has a newborn at home. In fact, the boss sat at that coworkers desk and used his phone while he was sick. At any rate, Salad went to the doctor and found out she has bronchitis and pneumonia. Sound familiar? When I confronted our boss about it, he said "That's too bad. Tell her sorry. I won't be here!" (he's going on vacation) Jerk.

Wedding preparations are still under way. Salad's had her showers with her family and her female friends - all that's left is the one with my family (silly aunts) and the moho shower. Gifts have begun trickling in, and one gift was a big surprise - a Wii with an extra remote. We've been enjoying the fun that's associated with having a Wii in the home, and some of our friends have been partakers as well. Once we're moved in and everything, we'll have to pick up 2 more controllers and have parties at our new place.

New place! We finalized everything and got the keys for our new apartment yesterday. We'll start moving random things over there probably today, but we have to wait on the big furniture-y stuff until we have access to a truck. We hope to be all moved in before we head out to DC for the wedding.

And lastly, Kengo's suggestions for Salad's icon/avatar/whatever were pretty good! I don't know what Salad thinks, but I've attached my top 12 choices (in no particular order, numbered for easy reference). Any opinions?

~drex

movies that make me cry

I really love it when a movie can make me cry. There's something terribly cathartic about induced tears, and where I often feel devoid of emotion, it's a welcome reminder that I have heartstrings after all.

Yesterday we watched Bridge to Terabithia, and I was definitely moved. It was much more than I was counting on, a lot of it really resonated with me, and though I was expecting a large part of the ending (thanks to some rants about the literary counterpart), I was caught of guard by just how poignant and earth-moving it would be. I was quite pleased with it, and now I'll have to go out and invest in a copy of the movie myself. Once I have the funds. :P

Other movies that often bring me to tears are Pay It Forward (I always think I'm doing so well until it gets to the song) and Testaments and Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration (I can't make it through Jesus saying Helam's name, nor can I make it much more than 7 minutes into Joseph Smith). I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

In other news, I've redone the layout for the blog, mostly from scratch. If there's anything horribly ugly, don't tell me unless you think it's a coding mistake that I can fix. ;) Salad wanted me to make the point that while she adores pink, she had nothing to do with the color scheme. She's also trying to figure out a better icon/avatar/whatever than a picture of a salad, but she's too sick to think of anything appropriately representative, so we're open to ideas.

~drex

eight random gay mormon facts about me

Eight random gay Mormon facts about me! As per Abelard tagging me. Scroll down to see Salad's responses.

THE RULES

1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. One of the gay stereotypes I don't fit is that I like watching sports. Especially NCAA football, basketball (NCAA only during March Madness and the tournament), and tennis.
2. I ran cross country in middle and high school, but I stopped before my senior year because I injured myself on a 50-mile hike in the Adirondacks.
3. I've always loved singing, but because all the deadbeat popular people wear in choir, I never did choir until the elite auditioned choir was an option my sophomore year of high school. I got in right away and have done choir ever since. Singing is one of my passions.
4. I play the cello, and have since 4th grade. Everyone else wanted to play cello, too, but I got it because my mom is loud, Chinese, and overbearing, and told the orchestra teacher that she didn't want to deal with the squeaking of an aspiring violinist.
5. I'm a chronic reader. If I get into a book, very few things will stop me from finishing it as fast as possible. Recent conquests have been the Artemis Fowl series, the His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass) series, Peter and the Starcatchers, Twilight and New Moon, and Eragon and Eldest, among others. Obviously fantasy piques my interest, but sci fi, adventure, mystery, and basically anything good appeal as well.
6. My grandfather was one of the first converts to the church in Hong Kong. President Hinckley gave him the Melchizedek priesthood, actually. My mom was born in Hong Kong, so you could say I'm 1st generation American on my mom's side. I'm 6th generation American (and Mormon) on my dad's side.
   
7. The first person I ever went to a dance with (age 13) ended up being a lesbian by our junior year. The first person I ever came out to (I was 16) ended up bisexual. I'm waiting for the bolt of lightning from Salad. ;)
8. I collect and obsessively categorize and store music. I have 55,668 MP3s archived on CDs and DVDs, and at least another 20,000 sitting on my computer waiting to be categorized. Most of the music comes from soundtracks from movies or video games, but I have an eclectic mix of everything.

That's it. TAG: Samantha, Calvin, Stephen, Stephalumpagus, Kengo Biddles, Mulan, playasinmar, AttemptingThePath.

Random Salad Facts

1. I’m one of the most accident-prone people you’ll ever meet in your life. I’ve injured most parts of my body in pretty random ways.
2. I am a die hard OSU fan even though both of their major sports teams failed me this year. Don’t mention Michigan in my presence if you want to continue living. Oh, and if you support the Yankees, we can’t be friends (the Yankees are the only time I’m allowed to swear and not have it count toward the swear jar). I LOVE baseball and my favorite team is the Cleveland Indians.
3. I love playing video games but I suck at the racing kind. I’m not sure why, but I have a hard time making it out of the start position and when I do make it out, I don’t usually make it out of the first lap before everyone else finishes. I really like first-person shooters, but only when the “cousin-stupid isn’t allowed to kill Salad” rule is in effect otherwise it’s no fun. We just got a Wii and the bowling for bunnies game is way fun too.
4. I’m 6^th generation LDS on both sides…I know, pretty boring. I have pioneer claims to fame, but I won’t bore you all with them because I’m kind of sick of telling the stories.
5. I’m not the super scary LDS scrapbooking Utah Mormon type but I do quite enjoy bookbinding. It’s really therapeutic and quite satisfying. The only sad part is I’m a terrible journal-keeper so I don’t keep the books I make. Although, I did make a book for Drex of all the letters that we wrote back and forth while he was on his mission. I was really proud of that book.
6. I LOVE learning. If I could get paid to be a student, I’d totally do it. I majored in history (obviously with no intention of having a lucrative career) and minored in English (again, no intention of being lucrative). Too bad we all have to grow up at some point and actually do something with ourselves. Both of my concentrations were complemented by education endorsements so I can at least do something with them…
7. I’m a total nerd
8. I love reading good books over and over and over again. Especially in the winter, curled up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate.

s.