21 young

Here are some drunken tales of what I've been up to since I've turned 21



Craft Lake City and Bar Crawl/Hike

Alice, Gillian, and I all went to Craft Lake City, which was SO COOL! I'm definitely bringing cash next year, because there were so many cool vendors. Skulls, feathers, dinosaurs, and terrariums were really popular. I collected about 30 business cards of artists whose work I really liked. The photo above was taken by a freelance photographer who was taking free pictures in order to promote her business. Family portrait! Craft Lake City wasn't the drunken part though, that came later. After we were through at Gallivan, we gathered our stuff and went on a homemade BAR CRAWL! Slash hike, because in SLC it's quite a walk to each bar. It started at The Green Pig, a local pub with rave reviews on their food and roof patio. Unfortunately, the roof patio was full so we ended up squeezing into a small bar parallel to the main bar. We sat there for twenty minutes, not knowing what to do about ordering food or drink. Finally, Alice thought to ask the bartender for some menus, which started us off on the whirlwind adventure of ordering our food and my first beer in an actual bar setting. Our food was delicious, the beer was good, and the bar grew steadily more crowded as it got later. As we were getting ready to pay, a man seated behind us at the main bar told us he would pick up our tabs. A little stunned, we asked if he was sure. We had ordered full meals and drinks and didn't know exactly what him paying for it all entailed. He assured us that he was not hitting on us and that he had daughters our age, he just wanted to pay for us. OKAY SIR, WHATEVER YOU SAY. Alice mentioned that I had just had my 21st bday and he wished me a happy birthday while we thanked him and cheered exuberantly once we were outside. We told our waitress on the way out that he was paying for us and she thought it was amazing. The next bar we went to was The Jackalope, a hole in the wall bar that was a total sausage fest. I was bar-shy and didn't know what to do, considering that the entire place was filled to the brim with belligerent guys who immediately gave us the once over when we got inside. Gillian asked what we wanted and I, suddenly unable to remember any drink concoction when put on the spot, said a Jager shot sounded exquisite (because it was the shot special I saw on the wall at this point). After that shot we went to the bathroom, which smelled like urine, and then decided we were through with that place. Next bar on the list was Keys on Main, which is a piano dueling bar. It was so much fun! There are two guys on stage, each with a piano, and they accept song requests along with tips. The unfortunate thing is that the songs with the highest tips got priority, meaning that all the $20 tips got their songs played and ours never was (we requested David Bowie), but it still was a lot of fun to sing along and cheer for your piano player. We did a lot of our drinking here, and in the process I became more accustomed to the bar scene and even chatted it up with the bartender a little (he was insanely busy though). We left at about 12:30 to head over to The Hotel, a dance club, so we could dance until 2 AM (last call). On the way, we asked a ton of people where it was and I'm pretty sure they thought we were asking where A hotel was, like we wanted a room or something. We finally found it, got some shots of whiskey, and danced like fools. At one point someone kept stalking us and asking me if I wanted to dance, which I didn't, so I ended up kissing him to make him leave. It was bizarre, I was incredibly drunk. In the end, my brother picked us up and all three of us could not fit in my bed so I slept on the couch.



Lupe Fiasco Twilight Concert and Poplar

Thursday night was the last Twilight Concert of the season. Twilight Concerts are concerts that take place in a large park downtown every Thursday night of summer. Lupe Fiasco was playing this one, so that combined with the fact that it was the last concert of the summer made it so 30,000 PEOPLE showed up. It was so crowded. Claire and I pre-gamed with Alien Blood, a drink I made up that is composed of green apple schnapps and sprite, and then headed over to Lisa's house, where we all shared a 4-Loko and Lisa and I took shots from the vodka bottle. Unfortunately, all of the water had frozen, leaving only pure alcohol that burned our lips and tongue. We then headed over to the bus stop to catch the bus down to the park but watched as the bus drove by just ten feet in front of us. Shit. Lisa started jetting her thumb out, pretending to hitch-hike while we catcalled and screamed at passing cars. Amazingly, one car U-turned it and asked us if we were yelling at him because we thought he was attractive or because we needed a ride. We truthfully told him we needed a ride and he told us to hop in his car. His name was Nate and we tried to get him to come to the concert with us, but he declined because he'd just come from the gym. He dropped us off in front of the park and we frolicked inside, where we found that there was a sea of people there. We struggled to find a place in the middle of the crowd, where we remained until Lupe started playing. The few songs we did hear were really good, but fights began erupting around us. One guy to the left of us was angry at someone else for touching his girlfriend, the people behind us were sick of people shoving in front of them, the people to the right were drunk and angry, and everyone seemed to just be in the mood for punching. We made our way out of the crowd, where we tried to help a drunk girl call her friends and where I was high-fived for dancing drunkenly to the music. Finally, towards the end of the concert we decided to head over to Poplar, a cute little hangout bar a few blocks away. While there we met Lisa's kickball teammates, some guy who let me have all of his drinks (he had the best friend ever, she kept giving him drinks and then I would just take them from him. Finally I asked his friend if I could have shots and she started bringing them to ME), and some other peeps I forget about. It was really fun. I kept drunkenly ranting about the tar sand situation in Canada. We finally left around 11:30 (it was a school night) and I called Gabe to pick us up again. He then threw a hissy fit and told me to never call him to pick me up when I was drunk again. Also that night I cried because I was so broken-hearted over a boy situation. I cried so much, dear lord...



Girl's Night AKA Last Friday Night

Do you like my tacky pictures accompanying this section? Friday night I asked Kristy and Megan if they wanted to do a Girl's Night, since we hadn't hung out all summer. I headed over to their abode at around 9:30 and we got dressed up while I poured my heart out to Kristy about my boy troubles. I was pretty upset still (and still am, honestly), but she made me feel better about it. We then waited until Megan and her friend Catherine got back from work until we headed over to Lauren's house. While we were there we pre-gamed with white wine and gin and tonics, hung out in Lauren's room, and giggled. A lot. We finally were ready to go to our first bar, Maggie Magee's. We hopped into the Lexus (Lauren is loaded) and headed over, where we realized that the sports bar was actually pretty lame. We decided to leave immediately. Then we headed over to Gracie's, which is apparently the number one hookup bar in SLC. After this point things got a little fuzzy, but I do remember some guys joining us at one point and someone bought me a shot. At some point we got home at like, 2:30 AM where I realized my knees were bloody. Something terrifying happened when we got back home. Tegan (my old roommate) was being dropped off by her friends at the same time as we were being dropped off and, since her friends were being ASSHOLES, Kristy and Lauren started freaking out at them. Tegan started screaming at them, calling them all sorts of beautiful names and telling them they could go to Hell, etc. I hid in the shadows of the doorway, not wanting her to recognize me. I felt a huge wave of relief that I had moved out and was not in the situation anymore though. I cleaned myself up, Megan and I had a drunken heart to heart until three, and then I collapsed in Kristy's bed (she slept over with Lauren). Catherine didn't drink the entire night so she could be our DD, but she probs thought we were idiots. Oh wellll. When we finally all woke up we headed over to Cafe Niche, a cute little breakfast place just to blocks away, and had delicious breakfast sandwiches while we sobered up in the sun and talked some more (about our book club, The Muss, birth control pills, and other inappropriate topics). It was the perfect end to an amazing Girl's Night.



The beer festival was later that day, but I was really hungover (double time) and it was a million degrees outside. Plus I knew that someone I kind of did, kind of didn't want to see was going to be there, so I opted to instead hang out with Gillian on the outside deck of Diva's while playing Scrabble. I went to Nostalgia after that to hang out with Maddie and Kit Fry, where we ended up going to Village Inn (our staple, of course) with Kristi as well and then went back to my place to watch X-Files: I WANT TO BELIEVE! Then we had a ridiculous picture-taking session.

The next day was dedicated to SLEEP and discovering this adorable blog, which I'm obsessed with right now. Natal and I are going to try to take pictures of our birds in their little miniature settings again tomorrow before we go to Geeks Who Drink at Piper Down (a trivia session that involves drinking-I'm down). Also tomorrow Maddie leaves for Germany for a year :'( I left work early today to hang out with her and then go on ONE MORE Village Inn run before we are both without it. I'm sad about it :( But also happy for her and the experiences she's going to have. Also a boy isn't worth being sad about either.

I'm just trying to keep my head up. Life goes on. Life is too short to be miserable for any part of it. So I'll be happy.

short story

I wrote a short story yesterday for my fiction writing class. The prompt was to choose a photograph and write a 2-3 page story about it. This is what I chose.




Sentinel

Every time he looked at it, shivers cascaded down Christian’s spine. There was nothing but tradition that kept it rooted to the outskirts of town. It was the 21st century, for God’s sake. Don’t let anyone catch you saying the Lord’s name in vain in this town though. It may be the 21st century, but you wouldn’t know it by the way people acted. His own mother still claimed that wearing pants was only for boys and that the girl he was seeing, Sarah Lemmick, was a no-good hussy because she had a tattoo. When he asked his mother what the giant, skeletal mass was doing nearby their town at all, she simply told him that God placed it there to watch over them. To keep the people who lived there honest and pure for all time.
“So she thinks it’s a warning then?” Sarah asked, giggling at the thought as Christian handed her another Milwaukee’s Best. Her face was illuminated by firelight, the tiny star tattoo at the corner of her eye emphasized by the contrasting shadow of her nose.
“I guess”, he said, shrugging as he took a sip of warm beer. He would never admit to her just how much the creature terrified him. The size of it, tall as Town Hall, was unnerving enough, but its presence was ultimately the real factor that triggered the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Its basic morphology was like that of a beast, but like no beast he’d ever seen. Crooked horns jetted from the cranium of the creature, the skull elongated like an elk’s, but with carnivorous teeth ten times the size of any bear’s. The structures of bat-like wings were fused to the shoulder blades. The most off-putting thing about it was none of these admittedly strange features, however. For Christian, it was the fact that the main infrastructure of the skeleton, the rib cage and the hipbones, it all seemed eerily human. The arms extended to just above the knee, similar to a human’s skeleton, but the claws were like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street. It was standing upright like a human. In Christian’s dreams, it walked just like a human, but with longer and heavier strides that carried it more and more quickly towards his house as he slept.
“I think she believes that it’s the skeleton of a demon that God put here as a reminder”, he continued, elaborating, “A reminder that there is evil in this world and we shouldn’t succumb to it.” It was not his favorite topic to discuss so late at night (or early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it), but Sarah loved this kind of shit. Her favorite movies were nothing but horror and gore, with the occasional sex scene.
“Has anyone bothered testing to see if it’s an actual skeleton?” Sarah scoffed, finishing off her beer and holding her hand out for another one, “You could probably tell if it was plaster or not just by touching it.”
The thought of touching it made Christian shudder involuntarily. When Sarah looked at him quizzically, he drew his jacket around him.
“It’s a little chilly. Maybe we should go home”, he said, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.
“No way. I want to see if that thing is real”, Sarah said, grinning as she snatched the beer he was holding out to her and swaying unsteadily to her feet.


---


Christian couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder in a paranoid fashion as they stood at the foot of the thing, Sarah arching back with her hands on her hips so that she could see the whole thing.
“Shit Christian, can you believe I’ve never come to see this since I moved here? I mean, I’ve lived here for six months. Six months is enough time to explore any town, especially this one…”
“Real or not do you think?” Christian asked, a little impatiently as the sky grew steadily greyer. The sun was coming up, and he wanted to get back home before his mother discovered he’d snuck out with Sarah again. Among other things.
“Hmm…maybe we should leave it a secret”, Sarah said, looking over at Christian with a stunning, but mischievous smile, “Otherwise it’ll take all the fun out of it.”
“It’s just a bunch of religious nut jobs who built it to keep kids from having pre-marital sex”, Christian grumbled, “’S not real.” He had to be confident. He had to believe it.
“Or maaaybe it is real. Maybe it even has consciousness. Maybe it really is watching us when we go out and drink at night”, Sarah said slyly, her last few words already melting into a bubbly, intoxicated laugh.
“You’re drunk”, Christian said firmly, smiling slightly and catching her arm as she stumbled a little, “Let’s go home.”
“Wait!” she cried, slipping a Panasonic point-and-shoot out of her hoodie pocket, “I want to take a picture of it.”
They backed up to the edge of its field and Christian allowed Sarah one shot before he dragged her back into the woods, towards home.

End

OR IS IT? I think I'm going to try to do this more often, I like it. I have tons of storeez to tell from the weekend as well, so I'll get around to posting that once I recover a little from the most recent bout of heartsickness.

revelations (and spoilers)

I have officially finished The X-Files

major spoilers for the show, p.s., in case anyone wants to watch it blindly

Well, at least the TV show. I still have I Want to Believe to watch, which I am saving for the weekend when I can watch it plus the hours of special features I got with my super X-Phile nerd edition while drinking Alien Blood (green apple schnapps and sprite). I'm savoring it, it's going to be an epic end to my first and virginal X-Files run. I've already started re-watching it and squealing about their awkward, first interactions. They're totally biffles sixteen minutes in to the first episode when Mulder asks Scully if she wants to go for a run with him at 4 AM and she laughs.

Here are some things that I have theorized, realized, or learned from and about The X-Files

EVERYONE IS CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN'S CHILD



So when they first started hinting at the fact that Mulder was CSM's son, I was intrigued. I thought, "How perfect that this angel from heaven's father is the cigarette smoking devil!" And then there starts to be this whole shit show of allusions to Samantha being his daughter/adopted daughter/ward and then our buddy Jeffrey enters the picture and it was at this moment that I concluded that LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THIS SHOW IS HIS CHILD. (p.s. the people at the bottom are, from left to right, Diana Fucker Fowley, Krycek, Marita, Skinner, and Frohike)

Except for Scully. He just wants to bang Scully.

EVERYONE IS IMMORTAL (or a cat)



Seriously. S E R I O U S L Y. The first time Cigarette Smoking Man died, I didn't really believe he was dead. I was sure he'd come back like Wiley Coyote. Sure enough, I was right. Then he died again. And I was pretty damn sure he was actually dead this time. BUT HE WAS NOT DEAD, HE WAS STILL ALIVE AND HANGING OUT IN NEW MEXICO PROBABLY SMOKING POT THROUGH HIS TRACHEOTOMY AND LISTENING TO GRATEFUL DEAD (based on his haircut). His case is the most extreme, but let's not forget about our favorite duo Mulds and Sculls (both of whom have at their fair shares of near death or death experiences and lived to tell the tale). Also, all of the informants show up again. Despite the fact that they might have died five seasons earlier.

And don't get me started on Krycek. Speaking of Krycek...

KRYCEK IS DESPERATELY IN LOVE WITH MULDER



The looks that Krycek gives Mulder are full of passion. When they first meet, Krycek just keeps glancing at Mulder the way that he would usually gaze at Scully, and there are quite a few times in the infamous speedo scene where Krycek can be seen checking out Mulder's package. When he realizes that Mulder is still bff with Sculls, he flips his shit and gets her abducted by aliens/military/I still don't fucking know. But Mulder still won't date him. Which is why he goes rogue and starts being the most impressively versatile man in all of X-Files. (Also I bet his heart leapt with excitement when a) Mulder handcuffed him to the balcony and b) when he got to kiss Mulder on the cheek instead of kill him).

KRYCEK IS BEHIND EVERYTHING EVER AND HAS THE MOST IMPRESSIVE RESUME EVER



I am always so in awe by Krycek. Maddie once made a comment that he is like the Cheshire Cat in that he shows up, gives some bad advice, and then disappears. I agree. He shows up OUT OF NOWHERE, usually from some batshit insane situation like a PRISON IN GOD KNOWS WHERE or a parking garage, and then does the most random tasks. My favorite is when he was in a situation where he seemed fucked, like when he was vomiting up black oil all over a spaceship and then was trapped in some random barn silo, and then suddenly he's become a chauffeur for the syndicate EVEN THOUGH THEY TRIED TO KILL HIM WITH A CAR BOMB JUST A FEW EPISODES AGO! What the Hell? Even though I hate him (HATE HIM), I also think he's pretty badass. In a super cowardly way. I love when Jeffrey pussies out of killing some alien and so Krycek has to emerge from the shadows directly behind the alien with an alien killing syringe and then stabs him in the back of the neck like a fucking NINJA.

DANNY IS THE TRUE HERO OF THE X-FILES



Danny is probably the most popular guy at the FBI. But he is also probably the one who has the worst personal life too. Especially since that damn X-Files office keeps calling him to trace calls that always end up at some phone booth on a stretch of deserted highway. Or sometimes he's asked to translate binary code.


Have I mentioned lately how much I love this show? I LOVE this show you guys. I'll update with some more revelations/lessons/pictures once I get the hang of school and have more time.

On a different note, today has been so good. Seriously, this has been such a good day <3

song of summer

Here are a ton of pictures I took while at the beach when it was still summer and the living was easy.

(I had my first day of school today. My first day of my LAST YEAR OF COLLEGE. So it is officially over)









Seaworld is half SQUEEEE CETACEANS!!! and half WHY AM I HERE, I WATCHED THE COVE! Seaworld breeds its own cetaceans (or so they say), so I don't worry that I'm advocating the terrible slaughter that occurs in Japan each year (seriously, if you haven't seen The Cove WATCH IT), but I still don't believe that mammals with brainpower similar to our own have enough stimulation in captivity to warrant them as happy animals.

But anyways, I still really like the orca show and cheered louder than most of the children present at Seaworld that day.











I was really on a "take pictures of random children" kick. Kids are the best at candid shots, which is why I love taking pictures of them.









Bad advise? For only a dollar? Yes!



































































This is my favorite picture









Abner, the shop cat



And Abner says NO DOGS ALLOWED







































Lots of dead stuff at the beach this time