On Being Homeless...

I have to admit...I am kind of enjoying being homeless in a weird sort of way. I mean, don't expect me to be shooting up at Pioneer Park anytime soon, but there is something to this homeless thing. It is sort of liberating.

I don't worry anymore when I hear about how the housing market is going to pot or freak out when there is an article about how SLC is on a huge fault line and we are due for a big earthquake (because in my mind if that happened of course my house would be totally destroyed and I wouldn't have earthquake insurance so I'd lose every bit of equity in my house.) I just don't worry as much anymore...I'm like, "Bring it on." But then I guess as a homeless person you have other worries, like where you are going to sleep at night, who's garbage you are going to eat, etc.

I was looking back at my posts from the past few weeks which may make it seem that I'm sort of unstable and crazy lately (and I guess in some ways I am.) But although there have been big changes for me in the past few weeks and there are more big changes to come I'm not scared or sad about those changes even though they have been and will be hard. I'm looking forward to it like an adventure...and sort of laughing like a crazy person to keep myself from thinking too hard. So there you have it...I'm homeless and a little bit crazy, but hey, I'm really happy so don't judge me.

The Defect Disclaimer

I love Diesel Brand shoes.

Why?, you ask.

1)they are comfortable

2)they look cool and stylish (most of them anyway)

3)I can always seem to find them on sale...my cheapest pair was 13$...I know, WOW I am a shopper (would have been 3$ if I wouldn't have forgotten that 10$ off coupon I had, dang it!)

But the biggest reason I love Diesel shoes was one I was not aware of until I was throwing out one of the shoe boxes my Diesels came in and came across this little card in the box that said...

"ATTENTION! AS A PIONEER, DIESEL CONSTANTLY INNOVATES AND DELIVERS UNIQUE LEATHERS AND TEXTILES GOING THROUGH NON-TRADITIONAL TREATMENTS TO CREATE INVENTIVE CHARACTERISTICS ENSURING THAT NO TWO SHOES LOOK A LIKE AND NEVER-EVER LOOK LIKE ANY ONE ELSE'S. IT IS OUR NATURE TO CREATE INTENTIONAL COSMETIC IMPERFECTIONS AND ANY IRREGULARITIES ON OUR FINISHED PRODUCTS ARE INHERENT TO OUR BRAND AND ARE NOT A DEFECT."

Now I don't know why that little card made me love Diesels even more than I already did...I mean really, that is just the company's way of getting out of having shoes returned for small defects. They tell us, "defects are cool, they make you different...you should feel like a million bucks walking around in those shoes because thanks to those little defects we give you, your shoes are unlike any one else's shoes," even though the reason you bought them in the first place was to try to be just like everybody else...I know, ironic.

Also, I find it interesting that sometimes different is cool and other times different is just weird, like the guy I saw in SLC yesterday wearing bright MC Hammer pants and Crocks with socks...that wasn't cool, that was weird. But that is a whole other story and way off the subject.

So I know that this whole Diesel Disclaimer is just some big marketing ploy but I really like the idea. Reading that card made me think, 'What if every person came with a disclaimer? What if each of us were born with a little Disclaimer for Defects card attached to our umbilical cord or something?' I think it would be great if we did. It might say,

"ATTENTION! THIS LITTLE PERSON IS NOT GOING TO BE LIKE ANY OTHER PERSON IN THE WORLD. THIS PERSON COMES WITH INTENTIONAL COSMETIC IMPERFECTIONS AND IRREGULARITIES...THESE ARE NOT DEFECTS BUT ARE WHAT MAKES THIS PERSON UNIQUE. THIS PERSON MAY TURN OUT TO BE: FAT, SHORT, BALDING, BUCK-TOOTHED, AND/OR HAIRY...THAT'S OKAY, THESE ARE UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRAND."

Now wouldn't that be nice. You could say to yourself, "Cool, I'm fat
(short, balding, buck-toothed, and/or hairy) but that is A-Okay because I'm unique and was created that way so that everyone wouldn't be Barbies and Kens..how boring would that be?!?"

Just something to think about since I have nothing else to write about just yet.

Chip Clips and Magnets

Today at work one of my co-workers (whose name shall not be mentioned), a woman in her late 50's or maybe early 60's, came over to me ranting and raving about how she was just sure that someone had stolen her chip clips and magnet and taken them home. "Do people just take home whatever they want from here?" she asked me. And then she went on to tell me that she buys those chip clips with her own money and she is just sick of people taking them...and how not only had someone taken her clip but her magnet was gone too! She uses these clips to close off open bags of these little plastic dilution segments we use and the magnet was a cheap little magnet with advertisements or something on it that she probably got for free that she used to hang up some papers. Yup, I bet someone totally stole her chip clip from a dirty medical laboratory and has it at home right now, keeping their Doritos from getting stale.

So I either ignored her or calmed her down...I can't remember now. But later on, as I thought back on it, I started freaking out big time and wondering to myself...'Is this what my life will come to if I stay here?...Will I lose it over chip clips and magnets?...Will I assume that everyone is out to get me (even down to stealing my chip clips and magnets)?...Will I be grumpy and unsatisfied with what I have done with my life?...Will teeny tiny things become hugely important to me?'

I really have got to find a career that 1)I'll be awesome at, 2)I'll make plenty of money doing, and 3)I'll love and want to succeed at. I'm working on it. Any suggestions?

Home Sweet Home

Hello. My name is Becca and I live in my car.

So I don't really have anything cool to write about but my friend Jerry from work told me today that if I don't get blogging I'm going to lose some blog fans, big time. But what if I write lameo stuff? Won't that make me lose fans too? Oh, well. So, here you go.

Super long story sort of short, my every attempt to find housing in SLC, after selling my house, fell through. I really did try to find a place to live (I think). I wasn't asking a lot...just somewhere decent, not scary, not uber far away from work and not super expensive and with not too freaky of roommates too. And I found three places I liked and that met those specifications...and each one of those places fell through for various reasons. The final, and perhaps most tragic (because I had already spent a day moving in most of my stuff) was with some cool girls from my ward. They had an extra room in their basement and so they asked me if I wanted to move in. And so I was like, "Yeah, of course." The rent was cheap, the roommies were great, the place was nice, the room was available immediately, and as an added bonus the complex was called Park Place and all the street names were Monopoly names. I was going to live on Marvin Gardens. Some guys in our ward live at Ventor Avenue. I didn't see any Railroads though or receive any Get Out of Jail Free Cards, and I certainly didn't receive large sums of money for being there, but it was still a cool place. I don't know when those condos were built...I guess in an era when you could sit around a board room and say, "Hey guys, I have an idea, lets name our new 10 million dollar condo complex after Monopoly...I love that game." And everyone is like, "great idea...genius...I love that game too!" Oh, the good old days.

Anyway, these condos, although from an era in the past, were well kept, had a swimming pool, basketball courts, tennis courts (not that I play) and plenty of parking. They were great...except for one thing...I couldn't fit any of my furniture down the stairs into the room. It's not like my furniture is that huge and ornate or anything. It is just normal, but those stairs took a sharp turn and my brother Lee and I tried every angle and every way and couldn't get my furniture in...and remember, this is after I've already moved most of my stuff in. Nice. So I renege on the whole deal and pack up all of my stuff and just move it all to my parents' house.

So that might seem a rash decision, but I just didn't want to have to buy new furniture just for this one place when I already have plenty of other good furniture and I didn't want to be paying rent on a place where I couldn't even have my room all set up...especially since I'll be gone most of the summer. And by that point anyway I was fed up and was like, "Fine, none of these things I'm trying are working so I'll do something different."

So, now I'm actually living with my super nice Aunt Jenny in Provo and commuting to work in SLC (luckily gas is only 4 dollars a gallon). So I'm not officially living out of my car, but I would imagine that before this whole thing is over I'll spend a night or two in it.

Do I actually seek for guidance rather than just let the fact that things don't work out determine what happens in my life? Yes. But sometimes even the seeking doesn't work out the best for me. Let's just say that the last time I went to that place where we Mormons go to receive guidance and peace (the one that took 40 years to build), I got seated between a sobbing girl and a girl who barfed all over the place...the inspiration just wasn't flowing that day for me, to say the least. So for now, I'll just put my life on cruise control and let what happens happen, until I get a better plan. I'll keep all you blog fans posted...that is if I have any after not blogging for forever and then writing this forever long post.

The Plunge

Thanks for the advice everybody.

And just for the record...

This isn't me...

This is me!

I may be jumping off bridges (metaphorically speaking) but not in the suicidal way...in the base jumping sort of way. Why? Because I know that everything will be okay once that chute opens...and that it will be a great ride to the bottom with great views along the way...then I'll make my way up to the bridge and will jump again. And that as long as I don't knock my head on the bridge or spear myself with a tree that I'm going to come out a better for having jumped. So thank you all for the advice. I'll keep you all posted on which page I turn to next in my little adventure!

Choosing My Own Adventure

Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books...where you are the star of the story? I do. I thought they were super cool. For those of you who didn't have the pleasure of reading these books as a child let me tell you a little about them. Actually, let's let the all-knowing Wikipedia do it. So click here if you don't know what these books are.

I loved the idea that two people could read the same book and get an entirely different story...or better yet, I could read the same book and depending on the choices that I made, I could get a different story. How cool is that...especially as a little kid? 'Wow, how do they make these books,' I thought, 'and how do they make the story work out no matter what you choose?' I remember even reading them backwards to try to figure out which decisions would lead me to a particular conclusion. Or going to a certain point and then reading all of the different choices from that point on and finding out where it would take you.

Right now the script in the book of my life would say. "It is 11:45 at night. To go to bed and actually get some rest for once, turn to page 8. To stay up late blogging and see how your day at work turns out, turn to page 9."

Life is just one big Choose Your Own Adventure experience I suppose. But in the books if you get to the end and you don't like the outcome you can go back to the point where you liked how things were going and make a different choice. Too bad we can't do that with life.

I guess sometimes I like that life is a Choose Your Own Adventure Story...I like the freedom, in some ways, to determine where we are and where we'll go. In other ways though, I absolutely do not like that we determine so much of where we end up. Yes, maybe the story is already written for us but it is written in a thousand different ways and with a million different branches and variations. Every little thing we do, even the small choices, are writing our story...choosing our outcomes. And it sometimes scares me that what may seem to be a really small, insignificant, choice can have big consequences in the end.

Lately I guess I just feel like whatever choice I make at the end of the chapter doesn't work out. I make a choice, I turn to page 14 or whatever and the next chapter is torn out or the writing is blacked out or the writing is suddenly in some language I don't understand and I'm supposed to just figure it out. So I go back to where I was and try again and again and again. I know that eventually one of the choices I make will work out...I just don't know when. And in the meantime my life is happening to me and those pages I keep going back to are getting worn out. John Lennon was right, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

I guess I am just at a crossroads right now. I guess I just don't know where to be or what to do. And I feel blessed for all of the opportunities, freedoms and choices I have but at the same time I wish that my choices were more limited so it would be easier to choose and just to be happy with what I chose. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it does to me.

My house is sold. It closes on Tuesday (the 13th!). The guy who is buying it wants most of my furniture and a lot of my decorations, even down to the rugs in my bathroom (weird, I know). So here's my chance to be free and mobile. The semester is over and I'm not taking any summer classes. I like my job and I like the people I work with (with a few exceptions) but I don't really feel that it is a career for me...it isn't something I am majorly passionate about or amazingly good at. I have no place to live yet...I am under no contracts. I have only one relative in SLC that I even have any contact with. I don't have very many friends here thanks to my working a million hours a week and doing school full time.

So really, I can't even figure out why I am here. Am I here because it is where I'm supposed to be or just because it is where I ended up by default? There are absolutely no logical reasons for me to be here. I guess I "just don't know what do with myself...don't know just what to do with myself."

So, here's your chance. Here's your chance all you married people, relatives, friends, blog leeches, nosy people, etc, and MOM...go ahead, butt into my life (but only for approximately the next two weeks...after that, bug off)...tell me what you would do if you were me. Help me write the next step of my adventure. I have some ideas of what I want to do, but I don't want to taint you with those just yet. I just want to hear what you think I should do with my life. I have exactly 52.38 remaining of the 81.13 years all we women in the United States are supposed to get out of life (2008 estimates from CIA World Factbook)...what should I do with those 52.38 years?

It doesn't have to be too deep. Just what do you see me doing for a career? Where do you see me living? What kind of adventures do you see me having? Choose my adventure for me, please. Maybe one of you will send me to a page in the book that won't be blacked out, torn out, or written in Chineese. I know that this post is so long that only people who truly care about me are even still reading...so, go ahead, I trust you...Choose my next adventure!

Growing Pains

Does anyone else have a flood of bad memories when you see this picture? I have been driving around SLC a lot lately as I am soon to be homeless and looking for a place to live. My travels took me past Cottonwood Elementary where I saw this announcement on their marquee. Instantly I felt a little sick to my stomach and a little sorry for all children ages 8-14 or so. I don't know why I care anymore...I am through all that and probably am closer to the end now than to the beginning of it all.

I guess you always remember traumatic things. I vividly remember everything about those maturation meetings. Starting in the 3rd or 4th grade there was already talk of it from older siblings and friends...the dreaded maturation meetings that started in the 5th grade. Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn. Inevitably the day came...towards the end of your 5th grade year. When they handed out those little slips of paper (a combination parental consent form and "Invitation" for your parent to attend with you) your heart just sank, because you knew, you knew exactly what that little slip of paper meant without even having to be told.

Each year was pretty much the same...5th, 6th, 7th. You awkwardly have to take the slip home and give it to your mom. Choose a time when she's really distracted and busy so she won't have time to make a big deal of it...and don't talk to her about it...just hand her the slip and disappear. That was always my plan. So a few days later, your mom meets up with you at the school for the "meeting." You walk into the meeting and try to encourage your mom to take a seat in the back...this was never too hard with my mom. They show you some video presentation sponsored by Always using little scenarios of teenage girls and their experiences with "growing up" and then give you all a little pamphlet with useful facts and helpful hints.

There was always the mom who raised her hand and gave comments and suggestions with TMIBT (too much information big time), the girl who was in your grade who for some weird freak of nature reason went through puberty earlier than the rest of the group and always had a lot to say, and then there were the refreshments afterwards...cheap-burns-the-back-of-your-throat-punch and yucky cookies...as if crappy refreshments somehow made the humiliation of the whole thing suddenly bearable...oooh cookies.

My mom luckily is, and always has been super cool. She never gave any embarrassing comments or any comments at all for that matter, tried to joke a bit and make a little fun of the weird moms to lighten things up, and encouraged me to skip the yucky refreshments so she could take me out for a real treat afterwards. In fact, I think she only came to the 5th grade meeting. In the 6th grade she asked me if I felt like I wanted her to come, to which I said, "No." She probably didn't want to go anyway. And in the 7th grade she didn't even make me go...she signed some slip saying that I was excused...that I knew all I needed the Jefferson County School District (District 251) to teach me about puberty.

So I know that this is a long post about Maturation Meetings, but seeing that sign the other day just brought back a lot of horrible memories. It was a traumatic time. I think I still have that little pamphlet of useful facts and helpful hints hidden somewhere in my room at my parents house. If I remember right, it is in a small manila envelope, hidden inside a bigger manila envelope(unmarked of course as to not draw attention to it), hidden at the very bottom of a box of odds and ends hidden under my bed. I don't know why I even kept that little pamphlet...I guess maybe I thought that those helpful hints would come in useful someday...especially since I didn't have sisters to get helpful hints from.

The Maturation Meetings never seemed to bother the guys as much as the girls...or at least they acted like it didn't bother them. If anything, from what I remember, it just gave them more to talk about at the back of the bus...and more informed conversation. Maybe it did bother them though...maybe they were trying to just act tough...like true men. All I know is that time is a time of my life I'm glad to be through with. Adulthood has it's own challenges but puberty is the pits. So be nice to kids with bucky teeth, stinky pits and Mexi-staches...remember you were one not so long ago. The end.