i blogged about my weekend.

i want to take this moment to say that i am an olympics nut. this is not my post about the olympics.

but i just want to say that i am in my basement, where we have the only TV that has channels, and i'm curled up with my laptop, my sorority blanket, and i'm not planning on moving. all i need is my stuffed simba.

THIS post is about my weekend. and how awesome it was. it was so awesome, it's going to come in parts.

are you ready? of course you're ready. you have to be ready.

EMILY GOES AND VISITS HER BOYFRIEND, JACOB, IN MICHIGAN FOR THE WEEKEND.


this is the encompassing title. that's not a part. that's the title of the entire weekend. awesome.

we're not cute. we're frightening.

in case you forget what jacob and i look like, or you never knew to begin with, here's a cute picture of us. or something.

so i leave at four in the afternoon, because of course, jacob has to train for his iron man or whatever he's training for, and he's angsty because he has a stress fracture and he can't run, so he was swimming, and this is a really long sentence, but i left at four. my mother warns me about storms coming into the area. so i'm driving with the windows down and i'm excited to get to the michigan border because then i can listen to my indie station, and i'm looking at the sky, and i'm driving straight toward dark clouds.

then i'm driving straight toward black skies.

and then it starts raining, and my first thought is, hmm, i should roll up my windows, my guitar is in the back seat and i spent a good sixty bucks on that sucker.


my second thought is OMG I CAN'T SEE IT'S RAINING SO FREAKIN' HARD I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING OMG I'M GONNA DIE.

it was exciting.

the next fun part of my drive was on 94 in michigan. 94 is your generic 2 lane highway. just like 69, which is most of my drive to alma. but there's just something about it that's so different from 69.

there is so much traffic on 94 it's ridiculous. cruise control? forget about it.

i'm already late because i took too long eating an apple before my drive, and about twenty miles from my exit to jacob's, traffic starts to slow down. i'm behind a semi and i'm thinking maybe i should get into the left lane if i can, but i decide to stick it out behind mr. semi. we're moving toward a traffic jam. we're averaging five miles an hour. i'm thinking about breaking my phone while driving ban and calling jacob while my car is stopped.

we're beyond kalamazoo. i'm not sure why there's this much traffic and why it's standing still.

of course. somebody got pulled over. it caused a five mile traffic jam. because somebody got pulled over.

the train wreck effect? "holy cow! that person got pulled over! i need to slow down to ten miles an hour and stare! never mind that i'm on a heavily trafficked highway where the speed limit is seventy!"

THE OLYMPIC CEREMONIES WERE... UH... AWESOME.


i'm trying to figure out why i missed the beijing opening ceremonies. i really am. i did nothing that summer. i went to LA in june and helped out hundreds of homeless people, but that was about it. so why did i miss the best opening ceremonies of all time?

jacob could care less about the olympics. i live for the olympics. best. summer. ever.

me: we have to watch the opening ceremonies.
jacob: but i rented pulp fiction.
me: NBC. NOW. I'VE WAITED FOUR YEARS FOR THIS.

before they start, jacob's news channel spends a lot of time talking about all of the michigan athletes. most of them are GVSU rowers. which is awesome. rowing is cool.

and then suddenly kenneth branaugh is there with a cigar and a top hat, looking like abraham lincoln, and i remember how AWESOME kenneth branaugh is and then it's opening ceremonies time and he's reciting shakespeare on a hill and it was awesome.

emily's personal highlights.

1. kenneth branaugh. obviously.
2. THEY SET FIRE TO THE RAIN.
3. those industrial columns were pretty cool.
4. just kidding, harry potter, voldemort's back and he's 100 feet tall.
5. that kid. his shirt said "frankie says relax".
6. the queen. she's cool. and no, she didn't sky dive. c'mon guys, she's in her eighties.
7. the fireworks. they were awesome.
8. i just love the olympics.

during the parade of nations, jacob gets up and starts to put in pulp fiction.

me and jacob's mom: what are you doing.
jacob: if we're going to watch pulp fiction we have to watch it now.
me: but france is coming up in the parade. i like france.
jacob: but i rented it.
jacob's mom: put that DVD away, sit down, and watch the parade. NOW.

later, jacob and me: SENEGAL! ITALY! SPAIN! COUNTRIES!

apparently, we like all the same countries.

then, even later, me: GREAT BRITAIN! SAEKHGJSEFG! I LOVE GREAT BRITAIN! AHHH! ENGLAND! AHHHH! THE UNION FLAG! THEIR TEAM IS SO BEAUTIFUL!

i kinda like england. a lot.

RUNNING INTO ADAM AND STUFF, LIKE KAYAKING


jacob and i went kayaking in the morning, which was fun. i associate kayaking with god, which isn't that weird if you think about it, because the first time i went kayaking was at church camp. we paddled around a small lake and we got out at a sand bar, and while jacob was sitting with his butt stuck in the sand, a fish bit his hip.

you should see that kid jump.

halfway back across the lake, i took a few minutes to meditate with god in my kayak, and lo behold, a teeny blue damsel fly landed on my finger. he smiled at me. we bonded for a good five minutes. he was really cute. god is good.

after kayaking, i cheered a lot for great britain in men's road cycling, and then jacob took me out to lunch at a coffee shop, where we ran into his good and awesome friend adam.

after having a nice lunch with adam, we decide to go to the antique shop next door.

i buy a lion shaped cookie cutter for a dollar.

think of all of the beautiful lion shaped cookies that i can make! it's lion shaped! my happiness was rather incredible.

after that, we went into an art building and looked at some fancy wood work, and then, like the hipsters we are, we sat by the river, played guitars, and sang folk music. that was pretty awesome.

then we went to the grocery store to pick up sour cream, and i wanted an adult beverage for jacob's bonfire. the michigan cashier had fun with my indiana driver's license. and adam bought me a delicious doughnut.

THE EIGHT HOUR BONFIRE OF HAPPINESS


jacob decided that this weekend was a good weekend for a get together with friends. because we're RAs all the time, not just at school, if you were of age and wanted to bring an adult beverage, you could, which is why i bought that yummy wine cooler. at six, jacob's high school friends came over, we started a fire, and we had a bonfire. because that's what happens when you start fires, right? but we started a fire and had a bonfire.

until three in the morning.

we grilled hamburgers on the fire (except for jacob and me) and janaya and stephen, jacob's awesome friends that just got married last weekend, showed up with a very large jug of lemon vodka. janaya shared some of it with me.

it tasted like lemon rubbing alcohol. i'll stick with wine coolers.

stephen, jacob, alex, joe, and eric all smoked pipes, janaya got drunk and we became best friends, kelsey showed up around eleven, and we talked about all kinds of things.

and allegan, where jacob lives, has stars. fort wayne doesn't have stars. i spent a decent amount of time just looking up at the stars.

we ate yummy food. we laughed. we talked. oh, and i got to hold a gun.

when it comes to guns, i take the odd thomas/chuck bartowski approach.

odd thomas: "i'm spooked by guns."
chuck bartowski: "i get the idea of, uh, point and click? but see, i've, uh, well i've never actually, uh, i've never really fired a gun, or really, uh, held a gun, or killed anybody with a gun, and i just don't think this is a good idea-"

i've fired a gun. i've shot a rifle. at popcans in the desert. that was fun.

this was a hand held pistol.

jacob made sure about eighty times that it was unloaded before i touched it. i kept it pointed at the ground. i was still convinced that it was loaded.

i held a personal pistol in my hand for about a minute and i wanted to pee myself in terror.

rest assured, if i were to murder you, it would not be with a gun.

AS MY VHS COLLECTION GROWS


janaya and stephen and jacob and i went on a double date on sunday, after sleeping in from being up until three having the magical bonfire. we decided that we were going to go the antique fair, which i guess is a really big deal.

there were thousands of people. thousands of vendors. thousands of items. people from different states.

it was a really big deal.

after four hours of hardcore antiquing and pining over a couch and drinking a fabulous expensive lemonade, i came away with titanic (and the little mermaid) on VHS.

i just really enjoy VHS tapes. and more importantly, watching them.

the couch that i pined over was awesome, by the way. totally awesome. it was yellow, leather, circular, and came with yellow, leather, and circular chairs. but i'm poor. i don't have 750 bucks for two awesome chairs and an awesome couch.

i also pined over a schwinn bike from the fifties, too many paper weights, and a lot of really awesome rotary phones.

after four hours of antiquing with janaya, who's an absolute pro, we only saw half of the vendors. seriously. this antique fair was that. awesome.

and now i've come to the last part of my weekend. hold onto your pants.

AND THEN I ILLEGALLY SMUGGLED A WASP BACK INTO INDIANA


the drive from allegan to fort wayne is a good two and a half hours. i was making it on 94 with my windows down and listening to the fantastic indie station. i stopped to pee outside of kalamazoo (that awesome lemonade caught up with me) and then i get back in my car and i'm ready to head to my grandparents' for popcorn and olympic swimming and gymnastics. my ears hurt, so i roll up in my windows.

i'm on the higway. i hear a buzzing sound.

i see something large dive bomb into my passenger wheel well.

i ignore it. it's something big and black, but i can't hear it anymore, and besides, the buzzing made it sound like it was dying.

twenty miles later. something flies across my line of vision and goes into my wheel well.

pretty sure it's a wasp of some kind. i have cruise control. if i don't move my legs, it should have no reason to sting me.

another ten miles. i ignore it.

then it decides that it wants to dive bomb my steering column. now it's somewhere around my steering wheel and my dashboard, and now i'm freaking out. i don't know where the damn thing is. i move to pass a semi. i flip my turn signal.

it's on my turn signal toggle.


it erupts into a loud amount of buzzing, it flies at my face, i scream and don't crash, and then it's sitting on my windshield, right by my rear view mirror.

this isn't a yellow jacket. this is a big nasty black wasp thing. i have my air conditioning on. i roll down both of my windows to give it incentive to leave.

it sits.

and when i say it sits on my windshield, it sat. for almost forty miles.


those were the longest forty miles of my life, let me tell you. i spent more time looking at the lethal bastard than i did looking at the highway.

we near indiana. to ease my nerves, i negotiate.

me: hey there, wasp. i know it's a long fly to indiana, so i'm willing to drive you there, if you promise not to sting me or make me crash my car. i feel like this is a good deal. when we reach indiana, please exit to the right, out of the passenger side window.
wasp: cool. i'm just going to sit here and scare the shit out of you.

we reach indiana. it doesn't move. i'm praying now. praying. because i don't want to get stung (i've never really been stung. i was once. in the netherlands. some form of dutch bee. it doesn't count.) and i certainly don't want to crash my car if it flies at me.

ten miles into indiana it starts crawling. toward me. and then it flies at me and out the window.

i scream. keep control of the car. breathe explosively. roll up the windows and continue to breathe explosively.

i adjust my position by leaning forward and cracking my back.

the bastard is still in the car. nudged up against my car door. IT HASN'T LEFT. IT IS STILL IN MY VEHICLE.

i scream again. keep control of the car. roll down the window.

after nearly seventy miles of wasp smuggling, it exits at angola.

it was pretty much... awful.

THE END OF THIS POST AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE?)

let's recap.

1. i went to michigan.
2. i went kayaking and bonded with a dragon fly.
3. i went antiquing and got a lion shaped cookie cutter and two VHS tapes.
4. the opening ceremonies were awesome. i recapped it in a list like this one.
5. i went to a coffee shop and played guitar by a river.
6. i had an eight hour bonfire that was awesome.
7. i held a gun and was scared out of my mind.
8. i illegally smuggled a wasp across state lines.

it was a pretty awesome weekend.

next post: how emily feels about the olympics. coming soon to a blog near you.

city city city city.

has it really been almost a month since i last blogged?

why, yes, yes it has. oops. can i give you a list of reasons? sure i can.

1. i have an average of five appointments a week. don't worry. i'm fine. i think.
2. odd thomas. this is a legitimate reason.
3. work work work!
4. um. more odd thomas.

but this post is about city. which is work.

do you even know what city is? probably not. you're about to find out.

city in a nutshell is this: athreedayswimmeetwithseventeenteamsandtheresabigparadeanditssuperlongandsuperfunandyoudecoratecarsandstuff.

HOLD ONTO YOUR PANTS!

city is basically the biggest weekend of my entire life. like, bigger than anything i do at school.

theoreticaly, i have been a part of seventeen cities. realistically, i think i've done maybe... ten.

it's broken into four sessions.

1. eight and under session. friday night, three until eight.
2. fifteen and over and eleven and twelve session. six forty-five until noon-ish, saturday morning.
3. thirteen and fourteen and nine and ten session. noon-ish until seven-ish. saturday afternoon.
4. finals session. all ages that made it back for finals. noon until whenever the hell the meet gets done.

this doesn't count sunday morning. but i'll get to that.

FRIDAY.

so this begins with the twins (hannah and emma) and parker, our prep coach, coming over to my house on friday afternoon so we could carpool to southside, because it's a hefty trip. note that southside, the nicest pool in fort wayne, is in the ghetto.

parker and the twins arrive. emma and i paint parker's toenails bright pink. i mean BRIGHT PINK. we don't mess around. my mom stands next to me and croons about how cute parker's toenails are.

on the way to southside, we're sitting in traffic between two SVUs full of older, african american women. what are we doing?

blasting "single ladies" and screaming IF YA LIKE THEN YOU SHOULDA PUT A RING ON IT

because that's what we do. we're dancing. parker is trying to disappear in my back seat.

aren't they cute? :)

as far as the friday night session goes, it's always decently stressful. it takes forever because every single person swimming is between the ages of three and eight. and yes, there was a three year old.

our eight and unders swam amazingly. a bunch of them dropped time and even made it back for finals, which is awesome, because they only take the top sixteen, and believe me, there were over 100 girls swimming the 25 freestyle.

emma and i spent a decent amount of time stalking ryan, who coaches arlington's little kids. he was at leigh-ann palmer with his toenails painted and wearing a pink bathrobe with puppies on it.

the life of a swim coach.

the only bad thing about friday night was the fact that brian was his normal pain in the butt seven year old self. we couldn't find him, and parker finally tracked him down up in the stands, where three of us had expressly forbidden him to go. like the west wing in the beauty and the beast.

he then slipped, fell, and almost seriously injured himself, like almost cracked open his head on the pool deck injured himself, and that involved five lifeguards, the natatorium director, and his babysitter.

if anything medically is going to happen to you, you want it to happen to you at southside. it's in the top five safest pools in the country.

SATURDAY.


the twins and parker arrive at my house at six ten in the morning. we load up into the twins' car and what do we do?

go through the starbucks drive thru.

ignore the blurriness. we were
rounding a curve.

we're wearing matching shirts. all four of us. hannah rolls down the window, leans out, and says, "we need four of the biggest java chips that you have with extra whipped cream, please." like this is the most normal thing in the world.

that was some damn good starbucks.

we get to the natatorium at six forty-five am. it's gonna be a long day.

i drink my starbucks way too quickly. i have to pee. we're not allowed on deck, so i use the bathroom upstairs where the parents are, and there's some orchard ridge parent in the stall next to me on her cell phone. i'm just doing my business and suddenly she's asking me if clinton and calhoun are parallel streets. and i'm like, yeah, clinton is east of calhoun, but they're parallel, and she's like, oh okay thanks, i'm giving this lady directions, and i'm sitting there like, uh, we're using the bathroom here. at seven in the morning.


the morning session was almost but not quite a nightmare. we had a large number of eleven twelve girls, and none of them made it back, but they sure had fun. the problem was, every other team (that's sixteen teams.) had a bunch of eleven twelve girls too.

the meet. did. not. end.

we were scheduled to end at noon and have warm ups for the third session be at twelve fifteen.

it's noon. we're still on backstroke. that leaves butterfly, IM, and the relays. oh, and there's another age group competing, too, don't forget the fifteen and overs.

at this point, my back is starting to hurt. a lot. a lot a lot. it hurt enough that emma and i snuck into the lifeguard locker room, raided their freezer, and got a bag of ice. i sat against a wall for a while, highlighting my heat sheet for the next session, and then it broke and dripped all over me. it looked like i sweated through my shirt. delightful.

around eleven thirty, hannah and i were hungry. lucky for us coaches, there's a hospitality room where you can walk in and basically eat anything that you want. last year i explicitly suggested vegetarian options, and so far all i had encountered for a main meal was a chicken wrap and some fried chicken, so that was upsetting.

but they had doughnuts.


you know those dunkin' donuts oreo doughnuts that are new?

i grabbed one.

i eat some cheese and pasta salad and hannah's going through results, and i start it on my doughnut.

absolute foodgasm.


hannah's sitting next to me and david (arlington's coach that i went to high school with) is across from me and they're talking to me about results, but all i can think about is how this doughnut is seriously the best thing i have eaten in my entire freaking life.

me: eskhrgkeushgkjdhgsg
david: emily. you're moaning.
me: THIS DOUGHNUT AHHH I CAN'T WHAT IT'S SO AHHHH

um. yes. tumblrspeak employed in the work place.

oh, i forgot to mention, i've had "prince ali" from aladdin stuck in my head. the entire fuggin' day.


if you don't know that song, here it is, for your enjoyment.

i know.

so by three o'clock in the afternoon, the third session is dragging. we have a lot of nine ten girls, and they're swimming fabulously. but our coffee has worn out, and we've been here since before seven. we're getting reeeal sleepy.

and prince ali is melting my brain.

so emma and i start holding hands. we're popping up behind people (mostly david) and screaming STRONG AS TEN REGULAR MEN DEFINITELYYYYY like it's our job. every time we sit down, we wonder if we'll have the strength to stand back up. my entire life has become scratching events off my heat sheet and robin william's singing in my head.

around five, parker sits down with me and hannah and emma. and he decides to tell us a story about driving over here.

parker: so i was driving to emily's house and i saw a ferret.
this is the funniest thing that emma and i have ever heard. we are so delirious that we burst into laughter.
parker: so this ferret has a bird in its mouth, right?
emma and i are crying we are laughing so hard.
parker: so i'm watching this ferret cross the road with a bird in its mouth and then BOOM it's hit by a truck!
emma and i are literally on the pool deck, crying because we are laughing so hard.


i think you can agree that this story isn't funny. this is what city does to you.

i was instructed to go find my chiropractor's husband (who is also a chiropractor) to help time about halfway through the third session. i find her in the stands and she runs up to me and she's like, OMG EMILY IS YOUR BACK OKAY DO YOU NEED ME TO DO SOMETHING TO IT I CAN TRY TO ADJUST IT I KNOW YOUV'E BEEN STANDING ALL DAY ARE YOU GOING TO DIE

and i'm like, i just need your husband.

oh, just a reminder, PRINCE ALIIII FABULOUS HEEEEEEE

to keep it in your head while you're reading.

so. saturday is EXACTLY twelve hours long. i call my dad to tell him i'm on my way home. he hopes that i don't mind that they started eating dinner without me. it's seven at night and they just couldn't wait to eat their pizza. when i get home, my voice is gone and my dad doesn't trust me to hold my own plate.

i'm that tired.

we end up watching the little mermaid. i tried singing poor unfortunate souls and i sounded almost exactly like ursula.

SUNDAY.


sunday is full of fun activities that involve me picking up the twins and being at the pool at nine thirty. we're wearing our matching tank tops that we puffy painted ourselves. mr. nanna, my boss's husband, has like, surround sound in his escalade, and we're listening to party music. kids start arriving. we have a guy in a frog costume running around and dying of heat stroke. we're car decorating.

oooooh yeah.

after car decorating, there's dancing. and they start playing the macarena, and the twins and i are like, YEAH! NINETIES!

and the younger kids are like, what the hell is the macarena. 

it's a sad world that we live in.

most of the kids and the twins ride in a trolley all the way downtown. we parade our cars and i'm waving a flag out of my car. we get to southside and everything is completely parked up, and i parallel parked (go me!) and then it's warm up time, and then it's parade time.

parade time. seventeen teams. we all line up outside, we all dress up (one year sean was buzz lightyear. that was pretty sweet.) and we walk in and scream and hoot and holler and do our team cheer and this is what city is really about, it's about getting together and having a fun meet with all the other summer teams.

we walk in screaming WE ARE THE BIGGEST, THE BADDEST, THE BEST YOU EVER SEEN, WE ARE THE GREEN AND BLACK SENSATION, THE AUTUMN RIDGE SWIM TEAM!

and thank god avalon didn't do their cheer that they've been doing since i was little. because that damn cheer will get stuck in my head all day and i already have the macarena in my head. i'd rather have prince ali.

after warm ups, the meet begins.

and let me tell you, we swam like bosses. it was our best city performance in a long, long time. and it was extra super fun.

my feet were soaked. they were tired. my voice was absolutely gone, but does that stop me from screaming and sounding like a dying pneumonia patient?

no, of course not.

when the meet was over, the twins and i sat on a bench, holding hands, completely dazed. and then we cried a little bit.

it was a good weekend. we had four kids take firsts in finals, and our relays were outstanding.

my voice still hasn't sufficiently recovered. but that's okay.

so now my job is over and i have another year without the most stressful weekend of my life. hoooray!

now here's some stuff i forgot to mention.

1. muffin smuggling and stuffing.

2. emma seeing jesus in the heat sheet.

3. me reading CCST as something completely inapproriate in my delirium.

4. various crying over ankle bracelets being banned.

5. me stuffing my face with olives because that was all that was left in the hospitality room.

those were some fine olives, by the way. very fine olives.

i didn't do this justice.

but nobody can ever do city justice unless you go and experience it. city is a once in a lifetime experience.

i've just gotten to experience it every year since i was four. :)

you're already invading my privacy anyway.

THIS POST IS A GROSS INVASION OF MY PRIVACY!

which is cool. because i'm writing it. and i can invade my own privacy if i want.

the question is, do you want to invade my privacy with me.

i feel like you do. this is blog about my life, and you're reading it, so you're reading about my life and what i have to say about it, so you're already invading my privacy anyway.

might as well keep going.

today was the day! today was the day that i got a trans-vaginal ultrasound! oh boy oh boy oh boy!

i'd been mentally preparing myself for a week. mostly just telling myself in the shower emily, it's gonna be okay. it's gonna be okay.


if you don't know what a trans-vaginal ultrasound is, i'm not going to tell you. now you have to keep reading to find out!

i'm so clever.

anyway.

i'm fretting at work this morning. i've been fretting for a week. when i leave work half an hour early and drive home to shower and become a presentable person (no showering before work. ever.) i'm freaking out. i need a full bladder so they can tell my bladder apart from my uterus.

because i guess that people can get confused.

so i'm chugging a grape-raspberry vitamin water zero because i don't like actual water. i only drink it when i exercise, or go out to eat, because it's free. you'll never catch me lounging with a glass of water. water has a taste, kids. and i don't like it.

i'm supposed to walk to the hospital. after all, it's literally like... a quarter mile from my house. i can see it from my bedroom window. but i'm too nervous, and now i'm full of vitamin water pee. so i drive over and it takes me about two minutes, tops. i walk in through the hospital entrance doors and i announce loudly and boldly that i'm emily, i have a pelvic exam at ten fifteen, and i'm ready.

i'm not. i'm not. not really.

i'm led to a waiting room where i commence to read about odd thomas and the love of his life eating churros in a parking lot. they're oddly proposing to one another (no pun intended) and odd can't figure out if stormy is saying yes. he's delighted to find out that she has, because they're abstinent and he can't wait much longer.

i know how odd feels. abstinence. it can suck.

so i'm reading about this and i'm just thinking about what my mother told me. she's away at church camp and can't hold my hand.

emily, they're going to stick a cold wand up there. it won't be that bad. it gets easier after having sex and having children because your tube widens.

thanks, mom. i've never had sex.

and i've certainly not given birth to a live, screaming baby.

i'm called back into a teeny receptionist area. i present my insurance card and my driver's license. the receptionist asks me if i have a living will.

good god.


i go back outside to reading about odd thomas. he makes me happy. i should invest in his other three books.

then this nice ultrasound tech named leah takes me away to the radiology wing of the hospital. normally i'm there for spinal x-rays. not to get wands shoved up my vagina.

so now i'm lying on my back on this bed and she's asking me how irregular and weird my periods are. then she squirts some hot ultrasound jelly on my stomach and starts pressing her magic ultrasound marker all over me. pressing hard.

my bladder is full.

i once held my pee for thirteen hours. i can handle this. i got this on lock.

i'm thinking about all kinds of things while she's playing pictures with my reproductive system. the first is juno, and how i'm very happy that there's not a baby on the screen. then i'm thinking about how i definitely know that i'm going to blog about this.

it's just one of those things you blog about.

when she's done, she gives me a towel and i try to mop up the goop with it, but i still get a little bit on my shorts. then she hands me a sheet, tells me to pee for as long as i can because my bladder is exceptionally full (two vitamin waters in fifteen minutes.) and she wants all of my pee out. then i can cover myself in this sheet and come back and it's time for the nasty part.

so i go into this teeny lit bathroom. and i sit down and pee. and on the pretext of trying to squeeze out alllll of my pee, i start pooping.

this is way more information than you want to know, but i'm not even to the trans-vaginal part of my story, so suck it up.

the only thing i'm thinking while i'm dropping turds into this toilet is olan rogers.

it is indeed a monday. and olan rogers is indeed talking about pooping. in a target bathroom.

so i finish my pooping. and i'm giggling because in my head olan rogers is going, "IF YOU JUST DO ME THIS SOLID, I WILL PRESENT YOU WITH MORE SOLID."

so i come back out with this sheet wrapped around me and i set my stuff by my purse and leah is telling me to lay back and put my feet up in these stirrups.

i'm becoming a woman.

then she pulls out the ultrasound wand and i want to run away.

this is honestly the first thing i think: if my husband's dick is ever that big, i swear to god i am never ever ever EVER having sex.

it was big.

leah explains to me that the ultrasound jelly is warm and it should be fine. it's barely going to be inserted, and for my own privacy, i get to insert it. just like a tampon.

the biggest tampon i've ever seen in my life.

literally, the thing is so big i have to ask if her if it's even in my vagina or not while i'm inserting it.

so she grabs the handle of this huge vagina wand and starts moving it around. she's not looking at my vagina, which makes me feel better, because my vagina is my vagina and not really her business. she's looking at the ultrasound screen, which i can't see, what with my legs all up in stirrups like i'm about to have a baby.

she tells me that my bladder is full.

and i'm like, excuse me, i just peed the clearest pee ever like, two minutes ago.

about three minutes into my vaginal probing, she hands me a towel and tells me that i have to pee again. i'll let you guess what i had to do with the towel.

so i'm peeing again. and during those two minutes that leah was probing in my vagina, my bladder has completely refilled itself. i took that whole "have a full bladder ready" requirement seriously.

it turns out that my little pee break is a blessing. i slid that vagina wand back into my vagina, leah grabs onto it, and then she's no longer just like, moving it around. it feels like she's probing.

"just a little pressure on the left side."

not much pressure.

"and some pressure on the right side."

not much pressure.

and then it feels like this magical vagina wand suddenly got a claw and it's sunk its teeth into the innards of my vagina and it's tugging at them. it stings. it burns.

my thoughts: i have a low pain tolerance. but i can tolerate this. i already got the wand in my vagina, i'll be fine. just grit your teeth and play with your ring. think about how you're going to blog about this. NO. SCREW THIS. THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BURN.

me: um. this hurts a lot.

she switches the magic vagina wand's position. not much better.

i tolerate it for another two minutes. then i tell leah that i'm extremely uncomfortable. i don't tell her that i want my mother.

leah pulls out. we're done here. she hands me another towel. i retreat to the bathroom and feel violated.

on the way out, leah smiles at me and tells me to have a nice day. i walk out the main entrance and the security guard tells me the same thing. i walk to my car and turn it on. roll down the windows. drive home.

forty-five minutes. that was it.

when i get home, i don't know how my vagina is feeling. so i do the only sensible thing.

i eat some licorice. i pee again. because my bladder is still silently refilling itself.

then i take a well deserved nap.

then i ponder how my dad can poke me on facebook when he's at summer camp with my mom. did he secretly take his laptop?

after all this time, has my summer camp had wifi?

this is serious. very serious. if i'd had wifi at summer camp, i could've started my blogging career far before my sophomore year of college.

anyway.

how does one end a blog post about a trans-vaginal ultrasound?

by leaving you a handy chart for if you ever get married and releasing bubbles doesn't cut it for you.

please. someone release the kraken at my wedding. please.

rugs of steel and storms.

it's been an interesting day.

so here's a list! YAY!

you totally weren't expecting that, were you.

1. when my alarm went off, i wanted to throw a knife at it. sarah walker/chuck style.
2. FUN FRIDAY. i've never been in that much pain doing a dolphin dart in my entire life.
3. nap ALL the time!
4. answer awkward questions about my ultrasound. because yes, that does involve sticking a wand up my vagina. and yes, i'm not mentally prepared for it.
5. credit union? my bank account is wayyyy happier than i thought it was.
6. go to the lake!

i didn't go to the lake in the traditional sense.

normally going to the lake is something like this.

don't pack until the last minute. find your swim bag. cram in a towel. which bikini do i want? does it truly matter? which one doesn't give me a wedgie?

my mom will yell "WE'RE LEAVING SOMEONE GRAB THE WATERMELON" and then i just kind of grab one out of my drawer.

and then it's running around, packing food, and heaven forbid we forget the veggie burgers, because i, the only vegetarian in all sides and dimensions of my family, need something to eat.

then it's an hour drive through the beautiful country of indiana.

did i say country of indiana? i mean the state of indiana, because indiana is country.

except where i live. and indianapolis. we're the only cities in the entire state, just about.

today was different.

my mother didn't know when we were leaving. i'm in my room endorsing my birthday checks because i don't have a single dollar in cash and my dad is like, COME ON WE SHOULD'VE LEFT HALF AN HOUR AGO

and my mom says all sleepily, huh? we're leaving? i need to make a salad.

we're very punctual people in my family. today just wasn't our day.

so i run into the credit union, and i'm staring at one of the tellers at my credit union, and i'm thinking, gee whiz, he really looks like that football player from middle school who's gained a lot of weight and is wearing a pink shirt.

i check his name tag.

totally that football player from middle school. and he's gained a lot of weight, has a beard, and is wearing a pink shirt.

i've changed a lot since middle school. this guy has no idea who the hell i am. which is just as well, i'd kind of like to forget who i was in middle school. just like you probably do too.

so he's working the drive thru, and i have to wait on this lady named christie. she's really nice and doesn't understand how i want my hundred dollars in cash to be dolled out. i really enjoy ten dollar bills, and i want five of them, and two twenties, and two fives. and i'm like, sorry, math isn't my strong suit, i'm not sure if that's right at all, and she's like, oh honey don't worry about it, did you want ten fives?

no. five tens, thanks. my parents are dying in our car in the parking lot because it's ninety-three degrees outside, can we move this along.

i did let that elderly woman go in front of me. i was being nice. sometimes being nice gets you crunched for time.

so then we're on our way, and i haven't checked my balance in a while, and i have SO much more money than i thought i did.

i perpetually pretend that i'm poor. then i don't buy stuff. it works great.

so we're heading out of town to the lake, which is an hour drive. and my phone goes off.

NYAAANTS INGONYAAAAMA BAGITHI BABAAA

lion king. you're not surprised.

it's jacob. he's in michigan.

jacob: hi i'm heading to your house right now!
me: ... NO.
jacob: what?!
me: i'm leaving for the lake, i'm still in fort wayne. i won't be back until eight thirty.
jacob: oh. i'll just hang out in kalamazoo. until six.
me: um. i love you?

literally two minutes after this, hell is released.

all day it's been rather cloudy, which is decently nice, because it's ninety-three degrees (which is better than yesterday's one hundred and six). and we turn onto washington center road to take the country part of it to the indiana highway.

and we face this solid wall of storm.

indiana is in a severe drought. SEVERE. it hasn't rained since march. we're nine inches deficient in rain. there's a burn and firework ban on the entire state. i'll repeat this sentence: it has not rained in indiana since march.

so here's this storm. we're at a traffic light, and this storm is getting darker.

me: that looks nice!
my dad: rain! yay rain!
my mother: HOLY AERUHGSKDJHGDG THAT STORM IS SO DARK WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE.

it was darker than this. i swear.

i'm excited. i like storms. and we have no intention of swimming at the lake, just eating dinner with my grandpa and seeing the new trailer, because we got a new one. the old one was from the eighties, or the seventies, or the fourteenth century, and we're excited to see it.

we're sitting at this traffic light in the country. and the wind starts picking up.

and then it's this full blown dust storm. and we're in my car (which is really my mom's) and then i start to panic a little bit. because i don't want dust damage. there are rocks swirling around. 

when it hasn't rained since march, what is else is the wind gonna pick up? 

dust and dead grass, yup. and rocks. lots of rocks.

so the light turns green and we move forward, and this HUGE blast of wind almost tips the car over, i swear. i'm excited and i'm taking this picture on my phone with instagram and i'm tweeting it. my dad has both hands on the wheel and my mom is completely freaking out.

worrying runs in our family. she thinks we're gonna die.

i think we're gonna die, but i'm too excited to be upset about it.

dust. rocks. swirling. we're driving by these country houses and all of their trees are like, practically tipping over and all of the lights have turned on inside of them, because i swear, it was like god turned off the light switch on indiana and was like, it's night time now, kids, with some seventy mile an hour gusts to make you happy.

scary. as. shit.

then it starts raining. and as soon as it starts, we have to pull over because there are two cops screaming down the road in the opposite direction.

somebody's already in trouble. it's been five minutes into this thunderstorm and somebody's already in trouble.

my mom wants my dad to pull over. the wind is menacing. it's dark as all get out. it's pouring down rain. she makes him turn on the windshield wipers all the way. he does it just appease her.

my dad can drive through anything. weather doesn't scare him.

then my mom starts to worry about people. did jessica make it back from the store? did my grandparents make it back from larwill? is everyone alive? is everyone okay?

i'm in the back with my phone and i'm like, seriously, guys, it's a storm.

well, it was a storm. when we got back from the lake (which it was sunny there most of the time. it moved on quickly.) there were a lot of down trees. storm damage. a missing billboard.

our rugs, which we had hung to dry over our porch railing, were just peachy, thank you very much. wet, but very much still attached to our porch.

billboard, pffft! you weak thing, you. we hollenbergs have bathroom rugs of steel.

so that's my storm story. we almost but maybe kind of might've died. my cousin and my grandparents were safe. my house doesn't have trees, so no downed trees for us!

and indiana got some rain. that's right folks, we got some rain.

but we still can't have fireworks to celebrate our freedom. because that's what freedom is about.

setting off fireworks in your backyard. nothing says freedom better than that.

the "i was attacked by a schizophrenic homeless man with a knife" story.

ANOTHER POST CRISIS!

so many blogging possibilities.

three days left in the challenge.

not a very exciting day.

i can obviously blog about the olympic swimming trials, because right now swimming is like, my whole life.

i mean, i coach the sport. and i sure as hell know more than the announcer dan hicks.

"it takes really great flexilibity to be able to side breathe!"

dan, i've been side breathing for years, and i can't touch my toes to save my life. nor can i bend my back in just about any position conducive to living.

while i'm watching the trials, my mom is talking about how she loves watching the breaststroke legs. you know, what i call "froggy kicks!" to the little kids. and she says, "goodness, emily, their knees don't come apart!"

and i go into a long detailed analysis about how all of your power comes from the snapping part of your kick, which involves the knees being together. i offer to show her on the floor.

so she lies down on the floor, and i grab her ankles like i do with my little kids, and i'm doing the whole "up/out/arooooound" mantra and her feet snap onto the bow of my shirt.

her toes unravel my bow. boom.

my mother's breaststroke kick may or may not have pulled down my tube top a little bit.

and i'm wearing a tube top because today, in fort wayne INDIANA, it was a hundred and six degrees.

the wrath of god has been blazing from the sky.

so after this all goes down and my mom is lying on the floor giggling and i'm thinking about how much actual breaststroke involves incredible long axis undulation, my mom says i should blog about this.

technically, now i have.

i tell her, "but mom, i was going to blog about the time that i was attacked by a schizophrenic homeless man who had a knife."

please tell me you're intrigued.

the EMILY WAS ATTACKED BY A SCHIZOPHRENIC HOMELESS MAN WITH A KNIFE story.

when i was in high school, i was in my church youth group. the summer i turned seventeen, it was mission trip summer.

every four years we have NYC. every MIDDLE four years we have a mission trip.

we spent a long time deciding where wanted to go. i was all for going out of the country, or at least to a state that i haven't been to, which is kind of difficult, because i've been to forty-one.

apparently, the last time my youth group went out of the country, things didn't turn out so well. there's a story about a bus and some mountains and it reminded me of the book "walk two moons" and pretty much the only CSI episode i've ever seen, and i wasn't too keen on that.

we settled with los angeles.

but emily, what goes down in los angeles?


homeless people. that's what's up in LA.

LA has a place called skid row, smack downtown. it's about five blocks.

that five blocks, at any given time, can have up to ten thousand homeless people.

you've read that correctly. TEN THOUSAND HOMELESS IN FIVE BLOCKS.

we were going to work soup kitchens, help out in shelters, clean up a camp, have a day off at santa monica beach, paint a salvation army, and on our last day, we ventured onto skid row at night.

general skid row rules.

1. if you're a girl, you stick with a man.
2. do not approach anyone that looks dangerous.
3. always have a car with a friend follow you.
4. do not accept anything from anyone.
5. always wear close toed shoes, the ground is covered in needles, urine, and feces.

i don't want this to be melodramatic. but walking through skid row, los angeles, at night, when the homeless come to life, was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

it was also one of the most terrible. i saw a woman smoking a crack pipe in a potra-potty. i saw homeless toddlers sleeping in shopping carts.

i stepped over a dead body.

time to lighten the mood. but when people say "there are starving children in africa!", i say, "there are plenty of starving people here too."

so. lightening the mood.

right. we have a red-eye flight, because that's cheap, and we're flying back in time. my very good friend sam that has a bromance with my brother, has never flown before, and he's terrified. we leave indy to fly straight to LAX at like, eleven at night. sam is so nervous he falls asleep. i drain the battery on my zune (ha. yes. i had a zune.) before we get there.

we get there at like... one in the morning. four in the morning fort wayne time.

we're picked up by gilbert romero, pastor of the church that we're staying at. we're going to east LA. shady LA. scary-ish LA. LA where you stick out if you're a white girl. but being the only white person at a 7/11 is another story for another post.

it's an hour drive to east LA, and we have to set up camp in the church. we have cots, and i pick the one next to my cousin/sister. we fall asleep six fort wayne time, three LA time.

wake up is in three hours. and we have a full day of fun christian mission work! YAY! god's work never sleeps!

first order of business: an outdoor soup kitchen smack in the middle of skid row.

i forget the name of it, maybe it was the jungle cafe? but there were beautiful murals of the jungle all over the walls. the back of it opened to a big courtyard where hundreds of homeless could congregate and eat. most of my group worked in the kitchen.

i was in the courtyard, behind a little hotdog stand. at my hotdog stand, i had a bottle of ketchup, some mustard, and a giant salt and pepper shaker.

i was alone in the courtyard at my little hotdog stand. my job was to pour condiments onto people's food.

the morning passed quickly enough, considering i hadn't slept. i was meeting new and wonderful people, and they were just so happy that i was putting condiments on their beans and salads. honestly, it just made my heart soar, knowing how happy i was making these people by dumping ketchup on their salad.

and then our schizophrenic friend showed up.

he definitely wasn't the first schizophrenic person i'd encountered that morning, but he was the most obvious. he was wandering around the courtyard with his food, twitching and shouting obscenities at thin air. it looked like someone was following him. he was small guy, only about five four, and really skinny and muscular. he smelled like urine (most of the people here did) and he had a graying afro.

he spotted me. and the condiments. he wanted some condiments.

i asked him if he wanted me to put the condiments on for him, or if he wanted to do it himself.

he told me he wanted to do it himself, and then he began to scream "BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH" in a very high pitched manner, swatting at something.

i'm trying to keep it cool. there's nobody around except for other homeless, eating their salads and having a great time in the courtyard, getting their free meal. i'm a seventeen year old white girl in a spelling bee shirt and a baseball cap running on two hours of sleep.

he grabs the pepper. starts shaking it. he's shaking it hard, harder than i like. i'm focusing on the calm. i'm holding the ketchup, thinking maybe i can help him.

he starts shouting about how the pepper isn't coming out fast enough. he needs more pepper. i start to tell him that i can open the pepper more when suddenly he pulls a six inch knife out of his gym shorts.

a six inch knife.


now i'm starting to panic. this guy is definitely mentally usntable and he has a knife. there is nobody here to help me. i'm still holding the ketchup.

he takes the knife and attacks the pepper lid, you know, with the pokey holes. he's just attacking it, wrenching this knife through it, ripping it open. then he turns it upside down onto his salad and the entire bottle floods out onto it, making this huge pepper cloud.

he drops his salad and starts screaming "FUCKING RUINED MY SALAD! FUCK FUCK FUCK MY SALAD!"

and then he attacks me.

don't get too worried, dear reader. he didn't slash my face. or eat it, like miami guy. he ran at me with the knife, i may or may not have screamed, he ran into the hotdog stand, and before he could do anything other than brandish the knife in my face and shout obscenities, the owner of the soup kitchen grabbed him and threw him outside.

and thus, emily, our intrepid blogger, was attacked by a schizophrenic homeless man with a knife.

it's always cool when i'm like, oh hey did i tell you about that time i got attacked by a homeless guy with a knife and everybody is like, OH MY GOD NO TELL ME ABOUT IT and i'm like, oh hey it went down like this


and then everybody just kind of gets disappointed.

it was too fast, my life didn't flash before my eyes or anything. but there was a six inch knife in my face, and my only weapon was a bottle of ketchup.

i could teach ketchup defense lessons.

except... i never actually defended myself with said ketchup.

the rest of the week went without incident, unless you count the homeless kid that bit me at daycare when we were playing twister.

i also sneezed fifty-four times in a row while we were cleaning out a cabin in the mountains.

i bet you haven't sneezed that many times in a row. i thought my head was going to pop off.

so ends my thrilling tale. i'll leave you with a picture of my youth group after we painted the inside of a salvation army women's shelter.

i'm in the red shorts and black top. that's my brother next to me with the
big orange N. :)

i have feels, but by god, i DO something about it.

why do i always feel like i'm having an existential crisis when i'm about to blog?

unless i know what i'm blogging about.

like, YES I'M GOING TO BLOG ABOUT VAGINAS AND IT WILL BE GLORIOUS

and then like, it just kind of flies out of my fingers and it's completely natural and everything is right with the world.

and then i'm not entirely sure what to blog about, and i run around and make lists and have anxieties and i just worry. how will i make a good post for you lovely readers if i have no idea what to blog about?

still trying to figure out why the student life office hired me to blog for them.

if i'm a woman of my word, i'm supposed to blog about odd thomas today.

i'd marry the CRAP out of that man. i really would.

see, but here's this other dilemma. i'm at work and emma is telling me how much she wants to read odd thomas because i'm tweeting obsessively about my odd thomas feelings.

because i get those. that's why i want to blog about odd thomas.

and she's like, okay, you can blog about odd thomas, but you can't ruin the book.


my odd thomas feelings come from the end of the novel. and i just need to commiserate with someone.

i tried with my dad. here's how this went down.

i walked into the kitchen yesterday. i was about two thirds of the way done with the book for who knows how many times, and i sit on the kitchen counter.

me: i'm having odd thomas feelings!
my father:
me: i just want him to be happy. why can't he just be happy?
my father:
me: and now i'm even more upset because they delayed the movie release! NOW I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 2013!
my father:
me: and the movie is DONE! it's COMPLETED! gahhh i can't handle this!
my father:
me: i'm just going to go finish the book and cry.

pretty much.

right. it's awkward for me to type feelings. i want to type feels instead.

I HAVE ODD THOMAS FEELS, GUYS. I JUST DO.

i can't even look at this without
having feels.

right. odd thomas. i should probably explain who odd thomas is. basic book premise, right?

odd thomas is a twenty year old fry cook. he lives above a garage. he's very simple, and only wears jeans and white t-shirts. he has a great, quirky sense of humor, and calls just about anyone he meets "sir" or "ma'am". he has a bad childhood but doesn't really talk about it. he sees the hope and light in humanity. he only uses peach scented shampoo, has a very reliable body clock, does not own a car, and can make the fluffiest pancakes in pico mundo, the desert town where he lives. his soul mate is an ice cream store manager named stormy, and they're doing this unheard of thing called abstinence. they like to eat tacos together in the belfry of a church. he's spooked by guns.

odd thomas can also see dead people.

you know, sixth sense i see dead people bit.

odd thomas's lines on this: "the dead don't talk. i don't know why." "i see dead people, but by god, i do something about it."

this, as he says, results in an unusual amount of laundry.

this isn't like the ghost whisperer, i swear to god. but when he sees dead people and they try to communicate with him, he tries to help them move on to the other side. normally this means he catches the person that killed them. or he gives them nice moral pep talks about how awesome the other side is. that can work sometimes.

i don't mean he like, runs around like the BAU in criminal minds. odd has never set foot outside of pico mundo. he probably never will. but remember yesterday when i talked about him wrestling harlo landerson?

that's about as personal as he gets, duking it out in a pool, trying to catch a killer.

most of the time he just consults with the police chief, wyatt porter, who's like a father figure.

so odd is twenty. when i first read odd thomas, i was sixteen, and i could not get enough of it. luckily for me, there are three other books (forever odd, brother odd, odd hours) and three more are coming. but i reread odd thomas over and over and over because there was just something about odd that i could not shake.

every person that i've met that has read this book has fallen hopelessly in love with odd. he's a great hero. he's a tragic hero.

i think i just really like his outlook on humanity.

seeing the dead can't be an easy thing to deal with. sometimes it's fun. the ghost of elvis presley follows him around and practically lives with him. but then there are people like penny kallisto who come to him after being raped and strangled, and they want justice. and he can give it to them.

again, odd is twenty. i'm twenty-one at this moment, and when i reread odd thomas when i was twenty, i just kept thinking about how we were the same age. and thinking, even though odd thomas has never left his home, has never seen the world, has never done all of these things, he is so much older and wordlier than i'll ever be.

odd thomas has the soul of a ninety year old saint, i swear to god.

until stormy comes around. you can't expect an abstinent twenty year old to not have bad thoughts.

most of my odd thomas feels come from odd's childhood, and i don't want to reveal too much, because you're obviously going to go read the book after this post. there's a reason that odd's spooked by guns, and there's a reason he doesn't talk about it.

there's a reason he's lived on his own since he was sixteen and that he has surrogate parents.

there's also a reason that when he was sixteen he was dumped into malo suerte lake chained to two dead men, but we don't get that explanation.

we also never figure out why he ended up chained in a meat locker with a japanese contortionist, caught by evil men in porkpie hats.

i love odd most when he mentions weird things like this, odd things that have happened to him. we never get any explanation. he just kind of throws that in there and you're left thinking, jesus, odd, how on earth did you get into that situation?

and of course, his name is odd.

his parents claim that it was supposed to be "todd" or "dobb", but they've just always called him odd. and it's on his birth certificate. the best part is he doesn't mind it.

odd doesn't complain about much. except people being offended by alliteration, because he loves alliteration.

"a flipped fork flicked my forehead."

it's so hard to blog about my feels for odd thomas. odd thomas has been my favorite book for nearly five years. i love everything about it. i'm drawn to odd. i feel for him, i feel with him, and i'm just doing a terrible job of trying to describe this without ruining the entire thing for you.

in short, I JUST WANT ODD THOMAS TO BE HAPPY.


i don't think he ever will be. we'll see what the next three books bring. they give me hope that he won't die.

this is a big achievement.

last night i finished the book, and even though i've read it a good thirty times, i just cried and cried. odd thomas just makes me bawl my eyes out. he's so incredibly human and i just can't stand it.

i'm also having feels because they're making an odd thomas movie. seriously.

i'm terrified.

odd thomas is the perfect simple complex character. he is the most perfect human in the fact that he is human, if that makes ANY sense whatsoever, and they decided that they can just make this into a movie?

the only person that can play odd thomas in a movie is odd thomas, and the last time i checked, odd thomas is a fictional book character that i'm madly in love with.

so i get on IMDB and the project is underway, and odd thomas is being played by anton yelchin.

i've seen anton yelchin twice: star trek and an episode of criminal minds. i don't know about him. mostly because he just physically doesn't look at all the way that i pictured odd, even though we never get a description of him at all. odd thomas is a first person perspective, and not once does he describe himself, and not once does another character physically describe him.

but anton yelchin just felt wrong.

willem dafoe as chief porter i can see. stormy i've never heard of. the same with odd's mother. but whoever plays her, she has to be perfect. she's an extremely minor character but she shapes odd's life and moral compass more than any other person in the novel.

i have to remind myself that dean koontz (the author) wrote the screenplay, and he's happy with the movie. the movie is completed, and he's happy with it. he says that he has "found the perfect odd thomas" in anton yelchin.

say slowly and repeat until you believe it: dean koontz is happy with the movie. dean koontz is happy with the movie.

i want this entire movie to unravel and never be made. you just cannot turn my favorite book into a movie.

odd thomas is a book character. he is the best book character on the face of the planet. he needs to remain a book character.

ONLY ODD THOMAS IS ODD THOMAS, OKAY.

when this movie finally comes out, i will go see it. i will dread it. i will be an absolute wreck.

and if the movie is any good, i will cry myself to sleep. like i did last night. becaue i just love odd thomas that much.

and god, i just want him to be happy, if he can ever be happy. that's all i want for him.

i'm not really sure how to end this. i'm just having odd thomas feels. and i kind of sort not but tried to blog about it.

i will say that when i was sixteen and i had odd thomas in hardback (my version is paperback) i walked a mile with it on my head. secret talent?

and i'll leave you with a great odd thomas quote.

“More to the point, I know why soldiers, home from war, seldom tell their families about their exploits in more than general terms. We who survive must go on in the names of those who fall, but if we dwell too much on the vivid details of what we've witnessed of man's inhumanity to man, we simply can't go on. perseverance is impossible if we don't permit ourselves to hope.” 

i also like this one.


“Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded.” 


the cow explosion really was upsetting.

everybody just wants my blood.

i want to blog about odd thomas.

i also want to blog about getting my blood drawn.

i can always blog about odd thomas tomorrow. he can wait. he has to wait because i love him.

so remember earlier when i blogged about going to see a doctor because of my irregular period? and i had to get blood tests?

yep, that was this morning.

so i have to fast for twelve hours.

if you know anything about me, it should be that i'm a swimmer, and because i'm a swimmer, i like food.

correction. i love food.

twelve hours of fasting isn't that fun. a normal person could come in and get their blood drawn between six thirty and eight, which are normal blood drawing hours.

sorry, i work from seven fifteen until nine thirty.

so they bent the rules and i could get my blood drawn at ten thirty. which gives me just enough time to shower and lounge around on tumblr.

so at work, i have a new swimmer. i walk right up to him and i say, "oh hey, i'm coach emily, and i haven't eaten in ten hours and i'm STARVING and i want a doughnut more than anything else in the world. which means that your practice is going to SUCK."

two turn fifties allll the way. sprint.

the worst part was when we gave all the kids suckers. i couldn't even drink water.

do you realize how thirsty you get coaching a bunch of seven year olds for an hour? and you're talking in this high annoying voice and saying, "I NEED YOUR EEEEEYES AND YOUR EEEARS ABOVE THE WATER PLEEEASE!"

goodness.

i didn't realize how thirsty i was until i got into the shower. my parents were out bike riding 56 miles to ohio and back, and i showered with the door open (to break down civilization, you know.) and it was the perfect time for me to win american idol.

at school, i don't care who hears me try to win american idol in the shower.

but my dad could be on american idol if he were remotely young enough. too many years of voice lessons. my dad has the clearest tenor ever. when he sings the national anthem at swim meets i get shivers.

it's not that i can't sing. i'm decent. but i feel inadequate around my father.

emily, our intrepid blogger, wins american idol with these songs.

1. skinny love- bon iver.
2. such great heights- iron and wine.
3. rivers and roads- the head and the heart. (i hit the high note on "change". yeah buddy.)
4. tree by the river- iron and wine.

jacob and i have an embarrassing video of him playing guitar and me singing tree by the river. and i'm wearing an awkward sorority sweatshirt and i keep licking my lips between verses.

anyway.

after winning american idol in the shower (yesterday i shaved to the classical radio station) and realizing how dry my mouth is, i put on something cute, decided to wear a necklace for the occasion, put a bow in my hair like usual, grabbed odd thomas and my appointment slip, and headed to the clinic.

i'm so happy it's a five minute walk. my hair took longer than i anticipated. if there's one thing i pride myself in, it's how i maintain my hair, considering.

so i walk there and i'm thinking about odd thomas frolicking around in a swimming pool with harlo landerson, which is where i left off, right at the beginning.

frolicking isn't the right word. harlo landerson has just raped and strangled penny kallisto, a twelve year old girl. odd thomas is trying to take him down and keep him down long enough to call the police.

but still. the idea of odd thomas in a swimming pool. mmmhmmm.

so i get to the clinic and the air conditioning isn't on. there's one lone woman in the waiting room. and it's sweltering. it's only seventy-two when i walk over there in my shorts and my short sleeved shirt, but i walked. so i'm warm.

i'm a sweaty person. it's gross. so i start sweating. when my mom and i do zumba together, we drip on the floor. yeup.

they call me back almost immediately, leaving odd and harlo duking it out in the pool. harlo will eventually escape, break into a house, try to use a small child named steve as a human shield, and eventually he and odd will end up throwing most of steve's worldy possessions at each other until the police arrive. odd will smash a panda lamp across harlo's head, but child rapists and murderers can't be taken down too easily, now can they. harlo landerson has a head of steel.

um. odd thomas is my favorite book. which is why i will be blogging about it tomorrow.

anyway.

so they call me back into the little room where last week i got my pulse and blood pressure checked. i sit in the pulse and blood pressure chair. and i realize that i've never had blood drawn before. i've donated, sure, when my iron is high enough (i'm pretty much anemic), but i've never actually gotten it drawn for testing to make sure i don't have a weird kidney disease. or ALL. because ALL can happen.

acute lymphoblastic leukemia. i'm paranoid about it. the likeliness that i have it is next to nothing.

but i'm paranoid about it.

so it's the super nice nurse that set up my appointment there to draw my blood. i tell her that i'm absolutely starving and i would murder someone for a doughnut. she assures me that i can eat as soon as i leave, and now she wants a doughnut and she'll probably go get one on her lunch break.

then she pulls out that huge needle and i suddenly turn into chuck bartowski. and i completely freak out.

you would think i'd be kind of okay with needles. my appendix exploded when i was eight and i had five different IVs. i've donated blood. i've gotten plenty of finger prickings.

then i remembered the time that i ran screaming around my doctor's office when i was seven and two nurses had to sit on me to give me my booster shot.

good times.

so i'm looking at this needle and i'm thinking, what happened to finger pricking?


and this nurse, she has vials ready for me. vials. because they're testing like, eight of my major organs or something, all because my periods don't come when they're supposed to.

she sees the look on my face. this conversation ensues.

me: i don't like needles.
nurse: just think about something else. like a cute boy.
me: my boyfriend. he's cute.
nurse: think about him, then!
me: he's visiting me on friday, i haven't seen him since the beginning of june.
nurse: aww that's sweet. why the long wait?
me: he lives in michigan- SEKURHGSEUHGSDJKFHGDS

that was her sticking the needle in and practically exploding my vein.

i continue to talk about jacob's wonderful existence in my life through clenched teeth. i guess that fasting makes you bleed quickly or something? because there is blood just splashing into these vials. like, pumping.

it's never that fast when i donate blood.

each time that she puts in a new vial, she twists and yanks on the needle. it feels like she's just driving it deeper and deeper into my vein.

once, a nurse stabbed a needle right through my brother's vein. this is going through my head as she talks about how she goes to ivy tech so she can figure out if she wants to do something other than nursing. each time that needle twists and moves, i grind my teeth together. and i try to think about my adorable boyfriend.

when i fill all five vials for all five blood tests, she yanks that needle out, slaps some gauze on it, and tapes it, and i'm on my way. she tells me to set up my pelvic ultrasound appointment.

it was really awkward when the nurse asked me if it was trans-vaginal on the phone.

um, yes, they're going to stick a cold wand up my vagina next week. i should mentally prepare myself for this.

so my parents got blood work done the same morning. they come home from biking from ohio and i'm like, MOM I CAN'T MOVE MY ARM IT HURTS SOOOO MUCH

and she's like, huh, mine's absolutely fine.

seriously?

the entire crook of my elbow is bruised. i have finally gotten to the point where i can bend my arm enough to adjust my glasses.

i don't want to sound like a complainer or anything. but i have a decently low pain tolerance. and i just really like to be able to use my right arm, since i am right handed. i couldn't pour my milk properly at lunch. and i had to read odd thomas in the most awkward positions to ensure that my arm was nice and comfortable.

it better be good by tomorrow. because my halloween swim suit came in the mail, and i am fully planning on getting in the water with my kids to test it out.

mmmm. new suit feeling.

i'll probably blog about my ultrasound and the test results. and don't worry, i'll let you know if i have acute lympoblastic leukemia.

or some weird ovarian cyst.

i'll leave you with a picture of how cute my boyfriend is.

general adorable picture on lake michigan.