shameless plug

Latest review I wrote for whitworthian.com, on the Secret Life of Bees.

man's best friend: ideally, also a man

As Fall Break approaches at Whitworth, you start to see students get a glassy look in their eyes. This haze is caused by three scenarios: 1. The student is looking forward to free laundry, homemade lasagna and 24-hour access to a TV remote; 2. The student is not going home and thus is picturing the four days they have to spend alone, with cafeteria food; 3. The student is going to be able to see his or her dog.

My freshman year, I thought it was just a fluke, a weird quirk that only applied to my small group of friends who felt they could trust me with their homesick desires. But as college has progressed, I've seen more and more that college students grow more wishful to spend time with their pets than their actual families. People have pictures up all over their rooms, or refuse to wash a blanket or article of clothing because the dog hair all over it just "reminds them of home." (And Katie, this isn't just you...) One friend even had an entire calendar made with 12 different pictures of her dog.

Now I never had a dog growing up, for several reasons. For one, we don't have a fenced in back yard, so logistically it would've been pretty a pretty expensive alteration to our backyard. Plus my house was always here and there and then over yonder about 18 times a day, and none of us could've really committed to taking care of a dog. (Cats are low-maintenance when it comes to indoor pets.) Sometimes when I was at the river I would sigh in longing at the family splashing in the waves with their golden retriever, or think that I might be motivated to run more if I had a canine companion. But then I would see the dog shake itself all over the family's dry blanket, or realize that I will never be motivated to run for running's sake, dog or otherwise.

So let all those dog dependents swoon over man's best friend. Sure, I might be missing out in the long run. But I've always supported the notion that a man should be able to maintain a two-way conversation with his best friend. And to me, a wagging tail or slobbering snout is a conversation I can live without.

back in the day

The Smith family is on campus today, because little Nat (who I guess isn't so little anymore) is considering Whitworth. Nancy came up to the media office and immediately was drawn to our opinion columnists' byline styles, which made me smile. Kelsey was up here too, and it was then that I realized that little Bacon was also the editor-in-chief of The Altitude, Hanford High School's newspaper. And of course, this took me down memory lane...here are some of the stops I made along the train of thought:

• explaining the difference between a gordita and chalupa as Alyssa and I made late-night Taco Bell runs. We keep things soft.

• constantly wondering, "where did Brandon go?"

• making glass after glass after glass of hot chocolate

• taking three hours to make a map in Photoshop, and then making Ben admire it for an hour

• sneaking into the press box at the state basketball tournament

• having people stare at my chest to read about the Hanford curling team

• playing hours of hearts instead of going to the journalism workshops at Central

• yelling at Ben to go take a photo of something, even though he had no idea what the story was about

• arguing over whether or not certain French phrases were common knowledge.

• the endless pranks

• getting ink all over my face when I always forgot to wash my hands after delivering the paper

• watching Nancy shop at gap.com instead of grading papers

• editing with Alyssa on my lap

...just to name a few

the john mayer soundtrack

I started out the day in the optimism zone. I only had one class, and I knew we weren't going to be there for the whole hour, so I pretty much had the day ahead of me to go forth and conquer. I had some evidence cards to finish for my debate class, and a little bookkeeping to catch up on for the paper, but other than that, it was supposed to be a smooth-sailing day.

Needless to say, by 3 p.m. there was no sailing happening, and it certainly wasn't on calm waters.

Long story short, I left campus feeling pretty discouraged and just overall, incompotent. Luckily, I had a date with little Bacon for some quality sister time, so I made myself leave school and just forget about all the stuff of the day. We got in Erin's car (my car is, surprise surprise, not running), and drove the .8 miles to Foxy Nails, the hot spot of beauty in North Spokane. Kelsey cranked Erin's Spanish dancing music and got really excited when I told her one of the lyrics was "I want to dance with you, without fear, until the floor breaks." With our unibrows now tamed and my stomach filled with 5-pump classic black iced tea, we headed home and spent the next hour mocking Oprah's epiphanies about the economy.

Once Kelsey left, James and I ordered pizza, and stolled over to Best Buy while we waited for our carryout order. We ended up playing 20 minutes of "Guitar Hero" and probably annoying the hell out of the Best Buy employees, but the looks on their faces told me we were not the first to sit and play the game for free, instead of buying it and sucking at guitar in the comfort of our own homes. We then watched the full set of Will Farrell's best of SNL DVDs, which I haven't seen since freshman year of college.

I tell you this not to turn my blog into my play-by-play diary, but to illustrate a point. By the end of the night when James went home to sleep before this morning's LSAT, I had forgotten about my stressful day. When I could've been cranky, I chose to be carefree. I let anxiety be pushed out by amiability. And I realized that at the end of the day, I have more important things in my life than just getting a task done. For some reason, that lesson really smacked me in the face yesterday. It's what happens whenever I listen to John Mayer's "Room for Squares" album. I just sit and recognize that trying to fit the world inside a picture frame means that everything outside of a 4x6 image gets deems unimportant, or somehow less significant in my life.