"Men should be like Kleenex: soft, strong, and disposable." -- Mrs. White

Heather: "If I get five hits on the paddleball in a row right now, I don't have to do homework anymore."
Me: "Um . . . 'kay."
Heather: "If I get seven hits on the paddleball, you don't have to do homework anymore either."
Me: "Riiight."
::Heather attempts to paddleball::
Heather: "DARN!!! I only got one!"

"Do my legs look any shaplier today?"

Hear ye, hear ye:

I'm about to share possibly too much information over the Internet that you probably definitely don't need to know, but are going to read about anyway, because let's face it, how can you not be intrigued by a lead like that?

::clears throat::

I've recently noticed that my hands alternate between getting moderately sweaty and super, super dry (as in, to the point of peeling and looking leprous). This may not present a huge problem right now, but imagine what will happen the first time a gentleman caller tries to hold my hand!

Option 1: His hand will slip out of mine, as if our hands were coated in Vaseline or something. I will furtively wipe my hands on my jeans and hope he tries again, but he'll probably be too grossed out and will never speak to me again. Lose 10 points.

Option 2: He will be shocked and appalled to discover the flakiness of my hands, and as I probably won't have any lotion on me (because that isn't the kind of item I regularly tote around), I will be unable to rectify the situation. He will find some excuse to let go of my hand and will never speak to me again. Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

So you see, I'm in a bit of a pickle. Unfortunately, my hand dilemma does nothing to deter the creepy guy in my country dance class from caressing the backs of my hands whenever he dances with me.

Jibblie, jibblie, jibblie.

"You look like a salmon that hasn't been completely cooked." -- Heather

Never again will I fail to bring my Blistex with me to work. Never again, I say!

I thought I would be okay today. I thought that maybe I could break the addiction. I thought that I could get through a measly six hours without applying that luscious lubricant to my lips.

I thought wrong.

By the end of work today, I would've given my left eyebrow for a tube of Blistex. And I don't make such statements lightly. I am, after all, rather partial to my left eyebrow. (The right one, on the other hand, is not quite as prized.)

Lesson learned. Tough stuff.

Airing out the dirty laundry . . .

I hope my pants don't fall apart today. While I'm wearing them.

Let me explain.

Last night, I realized that my laundry basket runneth over, and I should probably take care of the pile of clothes before it swallowed small children alive. So I put three loads in the wash, then came back to my apartment.

Then my roommates and I started interpretive dancing to Celine Dion and N'Sync, and it was a joyous occasion for all involved. I'm both a little disappointed and slightly relieved that some ridiculously attractive men didn't walk into our apartment as we were doing so.

Later, it was time to put my laundry into the dryer. However, two or three men were milling about the laundry room, and I didn't really fancy taking the time to find several available dryers and potentially exposing my underdrawers for all to see, so I shoved all three loads of laundry into one dryer as quickly as possible, and then ran off.

I assumed that I could always put another round of quarters in for a second cycle, but when the time came to do so, I couldn't find my trusty roll of quarters. So that plan was foiled. As I retrieved my clothes, I noticed that they were devastatingly damp. I pulled them out anyway and hung them up to finish air-drying.

I quickly ran out of hangers, however, so I started draping clothes over other things – the side of my laundry hamper, the top of my bedroom door, and some clothing rack of one of my roommates (Jessica's?) that I definitely used without asking. Whoops. And even then, my unpleasantly waterlogged socks just sat in a pile in the bottom of my laundry basket. I could do nothing more but cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Fast forward to this morning. I woke up to find that basically none of my clothes had dried overnight, much to my chagrin. I managed to pull out a mostly-dry shirt to wear, and then I poked around my freshly-washed jeans. One pair seemed to have dried fairly well, so I started to pull them on.

It was a LIE. There was no way in heaven I was going to wear that pair of jeans of my own free accord in my apartment, let alone in the 20 degree weather outside.

So I rummaged around my dresser drawers and pulled out a pair of jeans that I haven't worn in many moons . . . for good reason. This particular pair is getting dangerously threadbare in the general region between the legs, and I have lost more than one pair of jeans to holes in the same area. But I figured I would risk it anyway.

So that's how I came to be sitting in class, careful to keep my legs firmly clamped together . . . just in case.

Attention, Mr. Right:

Dear Future Husband,

Chances are, I don't know you yet. Maybe I do. Who knows? But if you're going to be part of my family, I have to warn you about a few things.

First off, if you smash cake in my face at our wedding reception, my mother will never forgive you. My father will probably think you're immature and question your ability to provide for a family. And I'll probably be ticked off as well. So don't do it.

I expect you to be able to make pancakes in the shape of different letters, so our children's breakfast meals will be in the shape of their initials. My father did the same thing for my sisters and I, and it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. So you might want to practice.

I'm planning to take your last name upon marrying you, but if your last name is something truly horrendous like Picklestein or Leech-head, I think I might keep my own last name, thank you very much.

Upon joining this family, you will have a nickname bestowed upon you by either my sister Heather or myself. This nickname will likely be related to a barnyard animal. It's nothing personal. I, myself, am known as Brown Cow. You could very well be Purple Peacock or Beige Llama. Don't worry, every family member has such a nickname. A full list is available upon request.

I could mention many other quirky things my family and I do, but I don't want to scare you off forever. You'll just have to wait and see what tricks we have up our sleeves...

Love,
Jennifer

"Maybe there's a reason why you don't have a boyfriend." -- Jennae

Before coming to college, I considered myself to be quite klutzy -- tripping over my feet, dropping things, and walking into walls happened on a daily basis. Since coming to BYU, however, I was under the notion that my clumsiness was only in effect when I was in California. I began to enjoy the bruise-free days and the lack of aching muscles.

Then, this week, the idea that I had overcome my klutziness crashed all around my feet.

Exhibit A:
Tuesday is laundry day,  so I stripped my bed and decided to head down to the lobby to exchange my old sheets for some fresh, clean ones. I wasn't wearing any shoes, and I figured I didn't need to put any on for a quick trip to the lobby, so I descended the stairs in my socks. Now, these stairs aren't carpeted, and every few steps have two parallel black lines of a sandpaper-y texture. My socks kept sticking to those particular steps, and I shortly decided to skip those steps. I had almost made it to the bottom of the stairs when the slippery-ness of the socks combined with the near frictionless surface of the stairs to send me plunging to my doom. I ended up falling down the last seven steps, entangling myself in the sheets in the process.

Well, I was quite sore getting up, and had to hobble into the lobby to exchange my sheets. You would think that after a fall like that, I would at least get a bruise the size of Texas to show off, but the resulting bruise didn't even show up until a few days later, and it was a wimpy one at that.  Four days later, I'm still sore. Alas.

Exhibit B:
Earlier in the week, I was laying on Cari's bed, chatting it up, when I dropped my Chapstick, which rolled off the bed.  Rolling over, I stretched to pick it up off the ground, and I definitely fell off the bed. I fell off the bed -- for Chapstick! It wasn't even Blistex that I sacrificed myself for. ::sigh::

Exhibit C:
Our ward went ice skating yesterday. Now, I haven't gone ice skating since I was like, 12. And I managed to do fairly well in the not-falling-down department for the most part. However, the one time I did fall, I twisted and landed funny on my shoulder. No bruising as yet, but it hurts quite a bit and I can't really rotate it at all.

Oh, and the ice skates definitely rubbed my skin raw on my legs. That was a painful experience. And it was made all the more awkward because I hadn't shaved recently, and when I made this discovery, the bishop and another guy in my ward came over to investigate. Hopefully they don't judge me on the length of my leg hair. Because that would be most unfortunate.

"Welcome to hell. Have a creampuff." -- Cari

Jennifer's quest to become ambidexterous, Part I
I've always thought it would've been really cool to be ambidexterous -- to be able to write proficiently with both hands. I mean, think of how useful that skill would be: during timed written essay tests, at the point where your dominant writing hands starts cramping up, you can switch hands; furthermore, if you should ever happen to lose one hand in a freak accident, you'd be no worse for the wear (well, you'd be slightly deformed, but at least you'd still be able to write and cut paper and such.)

Anyway, if you weren't aware, I am a lefty. However, I don't use my left hand for every activity -- I use forks and scissors with my right hand. (The scissor usage dates back to an incident in kindgergarten when I was still using my left hand to cut paper and accidentally cut the feet off of a paper cat -- and consequently had to stay inside for recess. Yes, I was traumatized. No, I haven't quite forgiven my kindgarten teacher for that quite yet.)

So I've decided to become ambidexterous. I'm not planning to take on writing anytime soon; my handwriting with my left hand is bad enough. So I figured I'd take baby steps.

As such, this evening I decided to try brushing my teeth with my right hand. Let me just say, it wasn't pretty -- and I wish I was joking when I say that my shoulder starting cramping halfway through the teeth-brushing procedure.

::sigh:: I'm so weaksauce.