A text conversation between Scott and I. Last year he lived in Bountiful Courts apartments. Then he left. A discussion about where he had gone:

Me: Where did you go?

Scott: 340 E. 500 N. apt. number 6

Me: Wow. I wasn't expecting that.

Scott: What were you expecting?

Me: I guess something more verbose. Poetic, if you will.

Scott: Oh. In yon Glenhaven.

Me: That's better. That time I understood you. Why dost thou leave me stranded here, Scott of Wiley Ways?

Scott: I still live nigh unto BC. Four blocks distant. I could never leave thee stranded Jen dear.

Me: Sir, I confess your sonnets charm me.

Meditation

I can sit for hours playing Slide Tiles on the computer. I recently discovered it on Hoyle Board Games and now am addicted to it. I play for hours dully sliding the mouse back and forth guiding the tiles into position. I shouldn't be so caught up in such time wasting activity, but the roaring monotony of it is fascinating.

Recently I’ve been thinking that the Zen-like state I reach whilst playing Slide Tiles verges on meditation. Before Slide Tiles, the closest I got to meditation was while reading my text books or during aimless Facebook jaunts. To the untried eye it might appear that I am wasting my time with such things as Slide Tiles, but there are few who truly understand that such activities are Yoga to the college student.

The truth is I don’t want to spend hours meditating or finding my inner peace. Although, I wouldn’t mind spending hours doing Slide Tiles, and come to think of it, I’m pretty sure there’s a small spot in Heaven carved out for those who master the art of Slide Tiles. Perhaps for today, as a first step towards that paradise, I will set down my text books and play a few rounds.

A Weekend in Washington

I went to Washington this weekend to visit my friend, Becca Adamson, and we enjoyed the sunshine at her vintage farmhouse. We laid on rubber donut-tubes down the river, stretching our bodies to let our skin receive maximum amount of sunshine. We got so much sunshine over the weekend that I got burned and re-burned multiple times.

We rode on her horses around her farm. The horses broke into a trot when we reached the large sprinklers that water the crops surrounding Becca's house. We let the horses decide the pace as we rode through the water, first at a trot then at a gallop. The sunshine lighted the water crystals and the drops shattered on our skin and clothes as the horses galloped through.

For much of Saturday we went boating on the Columbia River. We tubed all day, two people on each tube so that there were four people tubing at one time. We played tube wars, trying to kick each other's tubes and cause them to skid over the wake. When we got bored of tube wars we did acrobatic tricks. For my trick, I leaped to the other tube so that three people were on one tube, I felt like a frog jumping from moving lily pad to moving lily pad.

One of my favorite moments was Sarah Blazzard's dairy farm. The cows were lined up in the milking barn and we cautiously approached their udders, gently stroking them, their teats were warm and soft and plushy like fat fingers. Every time we touched the cows teats they kicked their leg forward as if to brush our hands aside. I think our touch tickled. We found a cow that didn't kick too much and gently pulled her teat and a small stream of milk squirted out. Becca and I took turns aiming the teat at each other's mouth and trying to catch the warm milk. We laughed, giddy from this wonderfully strange, yet disgusting moment. We laughed and laughed, wrapping the wonders of life and experience in our laughter and embraced it as much as two young girls can.

We visited the baby cows in their holds and let them suck our fingers. The roof of their mouths was hard with rubbery ridges. The baby cows sucked on our fingers as though they knew that they could draw milk if they only tried hard enough. Their saliva was sticky, milky and plentiful, it covered our entire hand. It was another disgusting and unforgettable experience that I wouldn't give up for the world.

As I was walking back to the car my foot started hurting. An hour later my foot was in severe pain. From years of experience I could tell that it was a sprained foot. I sprain my ankle so often that I keep an extra pair of crutches in the back of my car; it's ridiculous and embarrassing. It was really embarrassing to have to crawl to my bedroom that night. The Adamson family asked me how the sprain happened, and all I could say was, "I milked cows." There wasn't even a specific event to blame my injury on. I think my foot was tired of wearing flip flops all the time. Usually I wear my orthotics, but this weekend I just wore flip flops. Now I'm paying for it.

I was in serious pain that night. But Becca sat on my bed and we laughed about the absurdity of my injury, and the laughter subdued the pain. When I began to shiver violently Becca worried over me, and I said, "Don't worry about it, this happens every time I sprain my foot. It happens because all the blood is rushing to my foot, and so the rest of my body gets cold. I know it looks freaky but really, don't worry, I knew this would happen." And we laughed at the unexpectedness of it all.

I told Becca that I wanted to make a grand exit when I left for the weekend so that her family would never forget me. I figured that a sprain was the perfect way to go. And so it was that I visited Washington and had the time of my life and came home sunburned, sore, and with a sprained foot. That is what I call a good time.

Bruise

I asked my mom once whether she has ever had a hickey and she told me that she never has. I couldn't believe it. A hickey is a rite of passage into the underworld of the adult community, it holds major significance in a girl's dating life, and to never experience this is an oversight.

"Never?! Not ever? You are telling me that you have never had a hickey and you are fifty-something years old," I said.

"That's what I'm telling you," she said. She seemed altogether unconcerned about the fact. I understand that you don't want to get a plethora of hickeys, you don't want to be considered a floozy, but on the other hand she has been married for thirty years. That is plenty of time to receive one hickey.

"Have you ever felt a gaping hole in your life that is yet to be filled?" I asked.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she said perplexed, "Why would I want a hickey? All it is is a bruise. There is nothing romantic about a bruise."

Before I continue I must explain my mother. She is the most practical person alive. Her mind is fully logical. She has an a+b=c kind of mind. And so her comment was a very mommish thing to say, it was dead on with what I would have expected her to say and frankly anything else would have disappointed, yet when she said that it blew my mind. It was the most unexpected thing in the world.

"Mom, of course it is a bruise, but it is so much more than a bruise. That bruise represents the fact that a guy was so crazy about you that he essentially tried to eat your skin. How can you call that a mere bruise? That is a bruise created from passion, it is what we call a sexy bruise."

She looked at me as though I were crazy. This was a conversation sans understanding. Where she saw a bruise, I saw romance. There was no communicado on this point. It was just typical of her to take something romantic and strip it down till it was a fragmented, naked thing that was removed of all its glory.

I see my roommate on campus.

She works, i walk.

-you have fourteen days to return this. Here's your receipt.

She's busy.

Customers wait in a globular line.

-Next customer please!

I see her,

she sees me.

-Did you find everything all right today?

We wink at each other.

No one notices.

-That will be fifteen dollars and twelve cents, please.

Hidden communications;

All customers oblivious

to our knowledge

of each other.

This secret between us thrills.

I keep QUIet>

Voluminous Pants

I performed today for the Special Speaker Series on campus, so I'm wearing my professional trousers. They flare dramatically at the bottom, making them voluminous. Although the flare makes my bottom look small, sometimes I do feel ridiculous. I wonder how many people think I look like a hippie.

I walk and my pants hula-hoop around my ankles. Back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Yeah, embarrassing. I feel like a clown in a circus that can make my pants perform magic tricks. I have to remind myself that circus and hippie pants are a state of mind...it's a state of mind, Jen...it's all in your head. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

The Ultimate Bet

Why are the 26 letters of our language named the Alphabet? Perhaps there significance in the name "ALPHABET."

The Alphabet.

The Alpha-bet.

The Alpha Bet.

The Ultimate Bet.

Fascinating. Maybe that is the underlaying message. There seems to be a story behind this name. I suspect that the group of Language-Deciders got together and had to figure out the structure of the written language. They agreed that there must be a specific number of letters that could be used and no other letters could be invented after the set number was voted on.

So the Language-Deciders began to debate the number of letters. They debated for long hours, yet nothing was decided. Finally a fragile old woman in the back of the assembly stood up and declared in a loud voice, "Let us place a bet. We shall place a bet on whether I can do 100 push-ups or not. If I can do 100 push-ups, then the number of people betting 'yes' will be the number of letters we have in our language. If I can't do it, then the number of people betting 'no' will be the number of letters."

This seemed like a reasonable idea. The Language-Deciders all agreed. Everyone carefully cast their bets as the old woman prepared for her push-ups. When all was ready, the old woman got on the floor in the push-up position.

"One...two...three...," the Language-Deciders all chanted as the old woman bobbed up and down, "twenty....twenty-one..."

The old woman was doing remarkably well for her age and strength. Most of the assembly hadn't believed she could even get to 30.

"fifty-one...fifty-two...seventy-six...eighty..."

The old woman was about to make it, she was almost to ninety!

"ninety-one...ninety-three..."

But no! The old woman was tiring out, it didn't look like she was going to make it! Go old woman, go! Everyone began chanting, "Go lady go lady go, go lady go lady go!"

From the back a cry was heard, " Don't give up now Doris!" (This, obviously, was her husband...obviously). With a strained effort the old woman continued.

"Ninety-eight..." PLOP! THUD!

The woman crashed to the ground. She couldn't do it. Bummer.

Well, the "no's" won it. And there were 26 of them. So, there are now 26 letters in our alphabet--which came from THE ULTIMATE BET!

Pretty sure that is the story of the alphabet. I wouldn't doubt it. We live in a psycho world; it could totally happen.