day 25: my day, in (relative) detail

Have you ever had anyone come at you with a metal object that may or may not (but definitely may) look something like a large butter knife, and then proceed to scrape it across various muscle masses on your body?

Neither have I. Until today.

I started my regimen of physical therapy today, to treat that dad-gum ankle I injured so long ago on January 18 while rehearsing Urinetown. My strength and range of motion of my left ankle is laughable (though Ames finds no reason to laugh--sweet, sweet Ames). Luckily, after an hour-long wait in the waiting room for some mysterious reason we may never know, I was able to visit with D. Neeley who checked me out (my foot, doi, not me me) and said the best treatment would various strength and stretch exercises in addition to the muscle scraping he would like to do twice a week for the next month.

The dance trainer at BYU rolls out the knots in peoples' calves with a rolling pin. A literal rolling pin. And that's why it didn't really surprise me that the metal tools he pulled out to scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape over various ligaments and a particularly nasty, tender muscle up my calf. This is to break up scar tissue so the strength and stretch exercises actually have a chance to work. Makes sense. Sounds hardcore, yeah? I am, thank you.

For reference in your future: butter knives hurt way worse on calf muscles than rolling pins.

After this test of pain tolerance (turns out, my tolerance is pretty high, at least so far, so that's a thumbs up), they hooked me up to an electrotherapy machine to prevent bruising while icing my leg to freeze that anti-scar tissue into place or whatever. Felt weird. Made my toes twitch.

Anyway, so that's what I did today. After that I came back to work and worked FURIOUSLY on a grant proposal worth a couple thou which, I'm proud to say, we submitted on time. So there's that.

Also, we woke up this morning and Ames was afraid the snail in our fish tank, Harvey, had shriveled and died in his pretty gold shell. I wasn't so convinced. And I'm very glad to tell you, Harvey is not dead and he's happily slurping up all the algae in our tank.

Blunt-edged butter knives, writing so fast there was literal (well, figurative) smoke rising from the keyboard, and no escargot on my dinner menu for tonight.

And that was my day.

day 24: fancy tickling

You know, even on days like today, when I can tickle my fancy or your fancy or our collective fancies (not fannies, mind you), I feel pretty constricted by this blog-a-day thing and feel like a need "a topic." Like Linda Richman-- Rhode Island. Neither a Road, nor an Island. Discuss. Someday I'll start writing things that people care about, or that might actually be interesting or funny or poignant or meaningful. Writing about Diet Coke is probably not meaningful. I'm starting to concoct ideas for blog-essays again, but I'm still scared of it, having fallen out of practice, so I just gotta work up to it, see.

I've decided to try and network a bit. Like, my blog. And myself. I want to network myself and my blog. Is that weird to publicize? Is that weird to tell the world? Frankly,

Dear World,
I want you to read my blog. I want to be frequented. I want to be read. I want to do super awesome giveaways and have 3298728957 hits a day. Does this make me narcissistic? Does this make me self-centered? Maybe. But it also makes me ambitious, conscious of how a successful blog can become a successful book deal, a successful reviewer, a successful opinion of society!!

But listen-- I'm willing to work both ways, World. So let me read your blogs too, okay? You read mine, I read yours, we follow each other, and never have itchy backs.I really feel like we can work something out here, so let's brainstorm, yeah?
Love, Emily

What do I intend to "get" out of this, other than personal satisfaction and validation of the popularity I must have apparently lacked in high school? Well.

I intend to:
1. write better.
2. write more frequently
3. write more essayistically.
4. cultivate career goals that involve/focus on writing.
5. get into grad school since my grades maybe weren't awesome.
6. appreciate other good writers and interesting people.
7. gather new ideas.
8. become less petty.
9. make friends.
10. write a book.

And I've somehow got it in my head that sniffing around the blogosphere is the way to do it. Or at least, it's certainly A way to do it. Because while a desk job is pretty okay since we don't have to pay for Hub to go to school, and while I really love the department I work for, and while I'm working in theatre (which is my other career goal in life), and writing grants do improve certain technical writing skills that I probably don't pay attention to in my personal writing, it feels kind of constricting and impersonal.

Also, blogging tickles my fancy, and we've made it full circle.

day 23: a youtube video (and more)

It is so sad that the audio card in my work computer is busted (and always has been, in 7.5 weeks I've been working here at Oo-Voo), because I had forgotten how much I love this video, and why the theme song was Jeremy's ringtone on the phone I lost in England.



So, so sad.

This morning I had a 44oz Diet Coke (shocker) in hand before 8:30am. I have to hunker down and write a grant proposal today that might get us upwards of $10,000, so it's kind of a big deal. I have a feeling I won't have any patience for Pepsi Island today.

A bag of Honey BBQ Flavor Twisted Fritos somehow wound up in my purse too. Don't know how that happened. Can't account for it. Don't mind it. Need to keep my energy up.

That's how I get through these kinds of things: type furiously, stop to think, crunch crunch crunch, typetypetypetypebackspacetypetypetypebackbackbackbacktype, think, crunch, SLUUUUUUURP, typetypetype.

I'll have you know that I read 3/4 of Quotidiana last night. I was reading The Best American Essays 2009 and in the middle of an essay about a guy being kidnapped and held at gunpoint during the Civil Rights Movement, it occurred to me that all I wanted in the whole entire world was to go to the library. So I did, and came home not 20 minutes later, Quotidiana and two Antonia Fraser books in hand. I am set for the next few weeks. I intend to be one of those girls who has read every single book written by or with contributions by Antonia Fraser. So what? I'm a fangirl of history. So what?

But Madden-- he's got this essay called Gravity and Distance, which is downright heartbreaking, and I've read it before, and maybe I cried about it. I love these lines:

"Isaac was delivered; Abraham was delivered, from on high. Of the many reasons explanations excuses I have heard, one sticks in my mind: God wanted, it is said, one earthly father to know his pain, what it was like to sacrifice his only son."

What this has to do with Planet Unicorn, I can't even tell you, but I'm not sure it matters.

day 22: a website

Can I be honest about something?

I'm really boring on the internet.

For real, I am. I only really check about six sites frequently-- facebook, gmail, twitter, livejournal, this blog, and postsecret like clockwork every Sunday. I also use the UVU website a lot because of work, which I guess makes sense.

I do read a lot of blogs, but not as many as I could, or nearly as many as I should if I want other people to read mine and then I can become a magical blog goddess.

So what website should I blog about that doesn't make me sound boring? Or pretentious (because I have frequented The New Yorker in the past hair toss cigarette tap. Which reminds me I should frequent it again. Hmmmmm).

THIS ONE.

I've mentioned it here and there on this blog since it and I were introduced my junior year at BYU, Winter semester 2008. This is the semester I discovered essays, which topic I've also mentioned here and there on this blog. QUOTIDIANA is a website dedicated to the collection of classical essays, interviews with essayists, selections and links to the "Essayist American Essays," and writing of Patrick Madden-- my former professor who taught me what an essay is.

A note on Patrick Madden: he has published a number of essays in a number of journals, and has recently published a book called, appropriately, Quotidiana (available on amazon.com). I took his Creative Non-fiction writing class, as well as his History and Theory of the Essay class, both of which changed my life (though clearly not enough to avoid such a cliche that grosses me out). Frankly, I'm afraid my participation in both classes didn't exactly prove this, which may be partly due to how formidable I found him, which will probably be a shock to Dr. Madden if he ever reads this because he was just about the most laid-back professor ever since we'd just sit around in a circle and discuss essays. Also he likes to be called Pat, which is difficult for me to call him because somehow I feel like I shouldn't feel so familiar with him, given how far I have to go in writing, see. But for real, visiting his office or turning in work was always terrifying to me (in the best way possible) because of my high opinion. We did really cool projects, like interviewing practicing and publishing essayists, and we always had to be writing writing writing so that pretty soon all I could think about was essays essays essays, which is not really a bad thing. He'll probably laugh at me for this-- if he ever reads it.

Anyway.

This website.

It's really good for passing time but not wasting it. There are lots of poignant essays, and funny ones, and sarcastic-but-true, and they tend to be universal. And I mean, you start reading enough and then you can start quoting (essays are always quotable), which makes you sound really smart and well-read-- which you will be, when you start reading essays. You've heard of Francis Bacon, haven't you? Well, haven't you? And probably Jonathan Swift, and A. A. Milne, and T. S. Eliot, and Oliver Goldsmith, and Mark Twain? Essayist, essayist, essayist, essayist, essayist, essayist.

It's too bad E. B. White is too contemporary (thus, copyrighted) so his work can't really be posted because he is just a delight, I tell you, a delight. So you can go pick up a book of his essays somewhere like Borders, but not on the website, which this post is about.

But yes. If you like websites, this is a good one for you to browse. And you might just become an Essay Person like me (thanks to Patrick Madden).

day 21: a recipe

This is me, with my friends Julie and Heidi. Heidi is my greatest friend for needing to know how to do things. Like, anything. Like, any single thing you need to know, Heidi will know it.

Do you need to know how to get candle wax out of your carpet? Don't worry-- just take your iron and a brown paper bag (newspaper can work too), and it'll come right out!

Do you need to know about the psychology of 19th century clothing? Fear not-- Heidi might even get a DEGREE on the subject, so just wait a few years and you can have a pretty impressive thesis to read.

Do you need a wedding dress? It's fine-- Heidi can MAKE IT.

She's also handy for recipes, which is why I was able to make a delicious rotini lasagna for dinner last night.

1 lb. rotini
8 oz cream cheese
16 oz sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 lb. ground beef (or turkey)
1 can tomato sauce

Cook noodles. Mix with softened cream cheese, sour cream and cream of mushroom soup.

Brown meat. Mix with tomato sauce.

Layer noodles and sauce mixture in 9x13" pan. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Cook for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.


DELICIOUS, you guys, and keeps well for lots of leftovers.

i wrote a review of a play

So remember how I said a few posts ago that I was going to write a review for this new website, the Utah Theater Bloggers Association?

Well I did it.

And here it is.

Go read it, then validate my opinions as a theater-goer and my ability as a theater reviewer.

Browse around the rest of the site for a while, too. It's brand new, but it's pretty shiny and cool, I think.