Isn't it cool?! I just love it! Anyway, just showing off my latest creation!
Here's a big thank you to all you who serve. Thanks for everything you do, everything you've done and everything you've given all of us.
…..Always a chicken!
I won’t lie. I’ve been toying with the idea of joining the National Guard for a little over a month now. And I haven’t found the nerve to drag my sorry ass into the recruiter’s office to ask the ten thousand questions on my mind. I haven’t dared even stop in the parking lot, or make eye contact with the door. It just freaks me out.
But I have this weird, new need in me to serve, or at least do something good and worthwhile with my life (or, you know, some of my life). And nearly everyone knows how much I love our military. Every Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, I do my best to remind those around me how blessed we are. How awesome would it be to join the ranks of those I admire so much?
But I’m a such a chicken! I just don’t dare sign up!
Serving the country isn’t the only reason the Guard appeals to me. I have much shallower motives, too. If you’ve ever had more than one beer with me, you know about my insanely huge military fetish. Camo turns me on. Boys in fatigues, flight suits, ACU’s, full dress uniform, MAN, that does it for me. What can I say? I love a guy with his last name plastered to his chest. It just rocks. I can’t even imagine being surrounded by amazing people like on a regular basis. Or having my own last name splattered on my own chest (which might look funny, given the small size of my chest and the length of PETERSON).
Who am I kidding? I’m not ever going to join the National Guard. It’s time to stop fooling myself. I think I’d better just jerk myself back to reality. Find a rewarding job as an editor or writer or marketer, and then spend my extra time volunteering. I spent time as a volunteer in Price and loved it.
So, that’s the game plan of a chicken. No military, doing something that would actually make me admire myself, but a volunteer, doing something that would almost make me admire myself a little. Almost.
There is not one single morning that arrives in my life when I don’t thank the Lord that I woke up an American. And I know that seems cheesy, and you probably think, ‘Yeah, sure, not one SINGLE morning, right.’ It’s true, though.
I wake up to the sun or the snow or the rain outside my window and just smile. The window that holds so much possibility for me. So much waiting for me out there, every morning. Just blows me away that today; today, I can do what I want, when I want to, any way I want to do it. It’s all up to me. Sometimes, it’s simply overwhelming.
Freedom.
My freedom.
Even as I sit and write this, I can’t believe what a lucky girl I am. To live in a country where so many people have given so much for a silly putz like me.
So, this Memorial Day, I thank all of you, at least the ones that I can, which have made my freedom possible. I owe every ounce of my life I have to you. And know, that even as I choose to do whatever I want today, I’m carrying you in my heart, thanking you with every decision I make in my own pursuit of happiness.
After spending two straight weeks in
I know it seems strange to hear a girl like me say she doesn’t want a rockcrawler. The American dream tends to dictate to us that we need bigger, better, something to work toward. And I do want bigger and better, but not 40-inch tire bigger. I don’t need a rig that can drive up
Which is why I love my Jeep. Tee hee. It seems that every time I take her out wheelin, she surprises me. It’s the same cycle every single time. I forget how awesome Lil Red can wheel, because she doesn’t have much power on the freeway getting me to wherever we’re going. But as soon as I get her off the road, and on the trail, and put her in 4-wheel drive, something in the Jeep, and in me, just clicks. I’ll pull up to a rock, a ledge, a something that just doesn’t look like it can be conquered, doesn’t seem like Lil Red will be able to climb over. “Well, we’ll see,” I think to myself as I square up, pick a line, and give it whirl. And nine times out of ten, that Jeep just kicks ass. She’ll climb up and over and through things that I have my doubts about.
And then I laugh like a fool for 20 minutes. I love my Jeep!
I have been a chicken my whole life.
I’ve always said ‘no’ to offers I really wanted, but was a little apprehensive about. I never joined the Peace Corps, even though I wanted to for years. I never signed up for the Navy, even though I thought about it more than once. I’ve never climbed a real rock. I’ve never owned a gun. I’ve never done Lotoja. I’ve never gone rafting. I’ve never pestered an editor long enough to get published.
I’m tired of being that girl. I tell people to ‘man up’ nearly everyday. And I think it’s time I heed my own advice.
So, this summer, my goal is suck it up, grow a pair, man up, get some chest hair, grow some fuzz on my peaches, toughen UP, and start doing the things I want to do.
It’s time for me to be that person I’ve always wanted to be.
No more being a chicken.
Now, I’m not saying I’m going to run off and sign up for the Peace Corps and the Navy (maybe... probably not, though...but maybe...no, probably not…maybe the National Guard? Yeah, probably not.), but I am saying that I’m not going to sit on my butt and let the things I want just continue to pass me by.
Jennifer called me Amber for an entire year.
It started out innocent enough. The first time I met Jen, I had a class with her, and a girl named Amber. Amber and I quickly became friends while Jen sat on the opposite side of the room in a different clique. I think that’s where she got the name Amber.
The next semester, Amber had graduated and Jen and I were in another class. Different cliques, too. And one day, I heard her saying “Hi, Amber!” I ignored it, of course, because that’s not my name. When I looked up from what I was doing, she was looking straight at me and saying “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, totally fine. How are you?”
And it began. Every day, she’d walk into class, say “Hi, Amber!” I’d always pause, look at her to make sure she was talking to me, and say hi back. And, just my luck, I’d see her everywhere. Walking across campus, in restaurants, in stores. Every single time, I’d get “Hi, Amber!”
By the time I realized what she was doing, it was way too late to politely point out that my name was not, in fact, Amber. Even other classmates noticed and didn’t have the heart to tell her. They’d sit next to me, smirk and look at their hands whenever she said “Amber”. It was a joke.
When I talked to the real Amber, she told me the strangest thing. She said that when people forget her name, or get it wrong, they generally lean towards “Mandy”. I still haven’t found a reason for this strange phenomenon. The only thing I can guess is “Amber” and “Mandy” have the same number of letters in them.
Jen and I had so much in common, too. We were both Loganites, we both went to the
Somewhere, during Jen’s Year of Amber, another classmate, Carli, started calling me “Amber”. They didn’t know each other, as far as I know, and the three of us never had a class together. Two separate people in my life were calling me “Amber”. And then Ryan, my best friend since high school, became engaged to an Amber. It was all so confusing.
Thankfully, Jen graduated last semester. I no longer had to worry about being called Amber. I could finally be Mandy on campus again. Ahhh…the relief. I no longer had to listen for a name that was not mine.
But alas. I landed in another class with Carli.
Shit.
In the two seconds it took for me to register that this girl was going to call me “Amber” and I’d have to spend another four months answering to a name that was not mine, she pulled out the seat next to her and motioned for me to sit down. Great. Here we go, Amber.
I greeted her, happily, and we made small talk, caught up on what we’d been doing in the last semester, all the niceties that classmates do. During a pause in the conversation, the Name Gods bestowed upon me an opportunity that I’ll never, ever get again.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “but for the life of me, I can’t remember your name.”
Oh, man. What do I do? Do I tell her the truth or do I royally screw with the girl? Do I say “Amber” or “Mandy” or “Sarah” or “Jason”? Do I tell her that she called me “Amber” last semester, but my name is really Mandy? What to do, what to DO???
“My name is Mandy. You’re Carli, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
I watched her process that information. I could see the word “Mandy” tumbling around in her head, because it just wouldn’t sit quite right. I knew that she was so sure my name wasn’t Mandy.
“Did you go by anything else?” she asked, with her brow furrowed perfectly.
Crap.
“Nope. Always just Mandy.”
“Hmm. Ok.”
And that was the end of it. I haven’t been called “Amber”, at least, to my face, for three months now.
Who knew your own name could be so liberating?
I had the best day yesterday. I flew solo over to the Spiral Jetty by Promontory. I didn’t think the dirt road would be anything near drivable, and my courage level diminis
hes significantly when I don’t have another Jeep with me. However, I had nearly a whole day to kill, and nothing to do. And to my delight, the dirt road past Golden Spike was mostly dry. I even kicked up a little dust on my way out there.
I absolutely love the last half mile of road to the Jetty. It curves around that dark hillside, constructed of knobby, black rocks that contrast sharply, almost perfectly, with the nearly pure white salt of the lake below. The road gets rough, full of pot holes and there’s usually a car out there trying, oh, so hard, to not bottom out on every rock in the road.
Today, I passed one truck near end of the road.
And the Jetty was mine.
It just doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been out there; it’s always a surreal experience. It’s spiritual and amazing. The Jetty is good for the soul. It’s cleansing, and scouring, and 
refreshing.
The Jetty is black again, just like it was when Robert Smithson created it in 1970. And the water is so far out from the shore, with a solid, salt-paved beach surrounding the Jetty. The Jetty is meant to be walked. Smithson created it in a counter-clockwise spiral to represent going back in time to the person walking it. It’s a chance to go back and fix your mistakes. And once you’re at the very center, you experience re-birth, walking out from the middle, clock-wise this time, back into the world. It’s strange, being out in the very center of the Jetty, with two rings of earth circling you, and miles and miles of flat nothingness that blends in perfectly with the sky. If you look to the south, you can see
Today, when I walked the Jetty, I headed out along the black straight-away, focusing on where my feet were landing, watching my step, trying not to trip, even though the salt and sand are solid to either side. No. The Jetty is meant to be walked. But when I got to that first curve, the start of the rings, I stopped. That surreal whiteness was surrounding me and it seemed like those uneven rocks under my feet were the only thing holding me to earth. I couldn’t help it. I stepped off the Jetty and headed out into the lake.
I had horrible visions of the salt pavement under my feet opening up and swallowing me whole, much like a frozen lake, but I kept walking. I knew under the salt, which probably took years to form and solidify, the water wasn’t very deep. I had to walk at least fifty yards from the edge of the Jetty to reach water. And then it was only a few inches deep. Another thing I couldn’t help: I just HAD to touch the water (Thanks, Mom, for teaching me to touch EVERYTHING, to have some psychological need to feel the water). Even though the air was crisp and a slight breeze was blowing, the water was warm, warmer than the air. The makeshift salt shore had a rusty tint to it, a remnant the lake’s red algae.
When I returned home from the Jetty, I looked it up in my art history books. The entire theme of the Jetty, as a work of art, is life. Smithson was from
It’s got everything a total nerd like me needs….a great baja road for the Jeep nerd in me, the amazing work of art and all the fluff that goes with it for the art history nerd, lack of crowds for the part of me that hates people, AND the three hours of pumping good music straight into my system. Like a junkie with an IV.
What a great day.
As a faithful Jeep owner, I know the quirks and flaws of my vehicle. So, when the Jeep started shifting roughly, I knew it was time to add some transmission fluid. So, I do my diligence, and go to Checker, find the right goo in a bottle and pour it in. Done, right?
Of course not, or this would be a really lame story.
In the course of putting in ATF, I was also doing about thirty-five other things. I was thinking about buying gas, remembering I had homework to do, waiting for my freshly mopped floors to dry, checking on the gypsy-parent’s abandoned house, talking to Mom on the phone, checking with Dad to make sure I had, in fact, poured the ATF in the correct hole under the hood. I had been on the phone with the ‘Rents for about an hour, shootin’ the breeze, catching up on their adventures in the wilderness that is
And about every twenty-five seconds, Mom would ask, “Did you put enough transmission fluid in? Have you checked it?”
“No, Mom, I’m on the phone with you. It’ll get done.”
Eventually, I hang up with Mom, lock up their house and think it’s a miracle I even remembered I needed gas. And I’m off to Flying-J to pour some more money into the Jeep. However, buying gas yielded me the perfect opportunity to check to see if I had put enough transmission fluid in her.
After starting the gas pump, I unlatched the hood, and lifted it up against the windshield. I found a paper towel and pulled out the dip stick. I did the whole maneuver, wiped the dipstick off, stuck it in again, pulled it out, and was studying the level on the dipstick when I heard a low voice behind me.
“Checkin’ your oil? Is it low?”
“Oh, no, my transmission leaks, I was just making sure I put enough fluid in,” I said as I replaced the dipstick and made sure I had pushed it in all the way. Then I turned to see who had asked the question.
At the pump next to me, standing next to a gorgeous, maroon, dually pick-up truck, was the most butch woman I have ever seen. She was at least a foot taller than me, heavy-set, hair cut short, Nascar hat, down vest, the whole shebang.
I gave her a weak grin, and walked to the front of the Jeep to put the hood back down.
“My kinda woman, can work on her own rig,” she said in her low, almost gravelly voice.
My world froze. Was she hitting on me? How does one respond to that? I just stood there for maybe five whole seconds, without saying anything. Finally, time smacked me into action.
“Yep.” I slammed the hood a little too hard, and raced to take the gas nozzle out of the Jeep. Didn’t even matter if the tank was full, I was done buying gas. I clambered into the Jeep and ran away.
I think I can safely say that was my first lesbian experience. All for just $20 in gas….
I love grammar. I know I probably just lost half of my audience after making that statement, but bear with me. We’re all dorks about something. We know way more than a normal human being should about a particular topic and have become a total nerd in that area. Some people are into Star Trek, creating the quintessential nerd, the Trekkie, but we all do it. Those around me are Jeep nerds, bike dorks, farm geeks…..and on and on. I am a word nerd. I love word origins, grammar, comma splices, dangling modifiers, oh my goodness, the list just goes on….
So when I signed up for the Elements of Grammar course at USU, I thought I’d be a kid in a candy shop. Daily doses of subject-verb agreement, visions of prepositional phrases, rounds with peers about comma splices and simple or complex sentence structures. But alas, this was not how the first two weeks of class unraveled.
The first day of class was the usual welcome to class, handing out the syllabus, blah, blah, blah. The first assignment was determining subjects and verbs. Easy.
The NEXT class period, however, was a disaster.
You’d think that the first week of a college grammar class full of English majors would be pretty much heartburn free. Again…alas. A simple assignment of labeling pronouns, nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and prepositions turned in to a frustrating, painful debate. These English majors, these lovers of the language, could do nothing but say hateful things about the language they were planning on spending the rest of their lives using. They plan to sell their ability to know their stuff about writing, but can only complain about the simple mechanics.
Talk about heartbreaking.
Even after explaining the reasoning behind a word being an adjective instead of a pronoun, several students would say things such as “That’s just dumb” or “Why should I care?”
Why should you care about grammar? Because it matters.
When I see a bridge, or a building, or a car, or something that bunches of engineers spent hours pouring over, getting the calculations just right, I don’t think to myself, “wow, a lot of math went in to that.” I think, “Beautiful.” But imagine seeing a bridge where someone didn’t care about the math…It would fall, it wouldn’t line up with the road, it’d be too short, and it’d be UGLY. The same goes with English. If someone doesn’t care, it’s ugly. Think of how many times that applies in life….
If someone doesn’t care, it’s ugly.
I know, I know, everyone has a blog. And I’ve been against having my own blog, just for the sake of being different, or maybe for the sake of clinging on to my old ways, but times are a’changin. I’ve always thought blogs were best for people with kids, who need to share pictures, or those who have moved away from the ones they are close with and need a way to mass-communicate with many. But, as a writer, I feel like I need to be actively writing every day. So why not use a blog where others may potentially read what I have to write.
Besides, I like to bitch. And, I’ve been told, I bitch in a sarcastic, potentially amusing fashion. So…..why not use this platform to get a few things off my chest AND amuse a few fans at the same time?
And with that, here’s my blog. Read if you want, enjoy if you wish, comment if you like, and know that this is mostly for me.
Thanks.
