Go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

So I got engaged recently (woo) and let me just tell you how excited I am.  Like on a scale from moon walk to "HEE-HEE", I'm like Never Never Land excited. (This was a Michael Jackson reference in case you didn't have 10 cups of coffee this morning and aren't keeping up with me).  We were really lucky in that we were on vacation and had a good solid 2 days to be by ourselves before dealing with the world.  I kid you not, as soon as we got back, the stupid advice started appearing in spades.  And because you are very dear to me, sweet none existent reader, I would not hold endless entertainment from you.  So here are the things that I have been either asked, told or learned about "marriage" in the past month.

Firstly, we had no cell reception where we were so I was very limited in the people that I could tell.  The people I did tell however immediately asked me "did you set a date yet?!?"  Im sorry. What? I was shocked at first like geez I must have very silly friends that they would ask that within 10 seconds of me actually getting engaged.  Yet as I continued to tell people over the 48 hours following the momentous occasion, literally 98% of people asked me that and then I began to think that maybe I was the crazy one for thinking this was crazy.  Then I saw other people get engaged and discovered that this is an actual thing.  Like people get engaged knowing when they are going to get married already and then proceed to tell people the date.  So my plea to you is this... as a society can we decide that when someone tells us that they are engaged to just wait for them to tell you when the date is...there is no need to prod them for it.  If they want you to know, they will most assuredly tell you.

Secondly,  the guest list is taking over my life.  Going into wedding planning I was naive enough to think that I could get my list to under 75 people.  Then I began to draft it and realized that I was now at 48 people just within my family and I hadn't gotten to friends, roommates, coworkers or even the bridal party yet.  So then I made the mistake of asking people for their opinions about who I should invite, NEVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE! "Invite everybody in your family or people wont invite you to Christmas parties." "Don't invite people if you don't think they'll bring gifts" "More people=more gifts" "Just do a general invitation to the church and singles ward"  "make sure you invite your 3rd cousin...she'll be offended"  Basically the general theme was "DONT OFFEND PEOPLE!" and then I decided something that has changed this whole process.  I give no cares...not a single care was given by me while finishing the guest list.  I don't like everyone in my family, especially if I haven't heard from them in 15 years.  I most definitely don't like everybody at church and I don't care who feels like they "deserve" to be invited.  You wanna know who deserves to go? Me and David.  Other then that I don't really need anyone else so just pump your breaks general public, ok?

Thirdly, me setting a date has caused mass panic the likes of which I have never seen.  We got engaged the last week in July and I set my date for September 27, 2014.  Thats over a year so I will be out of school and I have enough time to plan a wedding on a budget.  So I go to tell people this (since they have been pestering me since forever) and immediately everyone is like OH MY GOSHHHH WHYYYYYY!!!! HOW CAN YOU WAIT THAT LONG?!?!?!?! ok first off, lets all just collectively calm our tits and just pipe down.  How can I wait that long? I have no money, thats how I can wait that long.  If I could afford the wedding of my dreams tomorrow, trust me when I say, it would be tomorrow.  I'm not going to compromise my dream wedding for some crappy fire hall/ cultural hall shin dig simply for the preconceived notion that long engagements are a breeding ground for problems.  A side note on this topic I told my extremely religious great aunt my date and her describing to me the likely hood of sexual misconduct while trying to not say anything inappropriate was like...the best hahaha one of the sweetest women I know and I actually really appreciated her honesty.

And finally I recently told my dad that I wasn't going to have a guest book and he told me I had too.  I was like why and he said "because everybody does, its tradition" to which I responded "Dad wheres your guest book" "....I don't know".  Which begs the question, do you need it?  Like if I had 400 people invited I totally get it but my guest list is at 150 right now and Im expecting it to be finalized at like 120.  I feel like that doesn't require a guest book.  Which leads into this struggle that I've had with a lot of things, apparently I have to wear a veil, have a guest book, do a receiving line and not see the groom till the alter. Why?  Why are these things? Can we just decide that they're not things?  Because I'm not doing any of them and you cant make me.

Soooo yeah.  Thats me today.  

"And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth..."

Good morrow interwebs! It has been...an age!  (sorry I've been like super into the hobbit the past week and everything I do now is tinged with Sir Ian Mckellon, a thousand apologies)

Anyways what uuuuuuup!!! Oh. My. Gosh.  I haven't even started and this is slowly deteriorating.  Lets just jump right into it, shall we?

This is my first blog in a million years so I decided "hey lets not think to hard and just say something funny".  So here my dear non existent reader is a list of things that my parents did that permanently scared me as a child.  What a great segway! and by great I mean there was none.  You're welcome! ROLL CAMERA!

When I was 9 my dad shot a stray cat while it was having sex with our cat because he didn't want kittens and he felt the need to protect our cat from STDs and teenage pregnancy.  True story.

When I was 5 my mom was really into making me believe in Santa Clause so on Christmas Eve she convinced my dad to climb the stairs to my attic bedroom and start ringing jingle bells.  Guess what.  She fell down the stairs. There is no Santa Clause.

When I was a senior my dad misinterpreted me saying that I was sad because I didn't have a date to prom as "hey dad please find me a date to prom." so he asked someone to ask me to senior prom.  ps I hate this person with the strength of a thousand suns.

I got my period right before the 7th grade pool party and had never used a tampon before and my mom just so happened to be at work so my dad decided to demonstrate what a tampon is by taking one of my moms super extra ultra massive tampons and dropping it into a dixie cup full of water.

My mom told the guy I'm dating that I had constipation issues as a child.  Thanks mom.

When I came home the night after my first kiss my dad said and I quote "Did he slip you the tongue".   Excuse me while I go drink bleach.

All that aside I think my parents did a dang good job hahaha anyways sooooo yeah that's my life today.

First World Problems

Everyone is so grateful for everything this time of year.  Its disgusting.  Seriously from Thanksgiving to New Years social media at large is bombarded with "what I'm grateful for" posts,  Look-at-my-glorious-feast Instagrahms and #ifyouloveyourfamilyclapyourhands tweets.   Bah Humbug!  I'm a selfish person the rest of the year so by golly I will be for the last month and a half.  In the tradition of non conformity that I cling to I will try and combat the nauseating sentiments that seem to permeate the air this season by giving you my list of things that I'm not grateful for.   It will be written in the style of "First World Problems".  Many of you have probably heard of this but for those of you haven't here is a brief explanation.  "First World Problems" are those irritating things that make you want to kill yourself that the starving children in Africa probably wouldn't understand.  So here are the things I'm not grateful for.... and loath.

• When you were NOT in a terrible accident and your seat belt decides to become the safety harness of death for no apparent reason, but the moment something actually happens its all like loosy goosy "hey I'm a seat belt I didn't graduate college do you expect me to save your life? not today."
• When you're out on a date and they order water and now you're forced to order water because if you don't a) you'll look like a fat lard with your carbonated beverage and b) like you don't care that you're willy nilly spending his money on conveniences such as fountain drinks.
• When Mary Poppins is standing in front of you in the grocery store and decides to look for exact change in the very bottom of her carpet bag
• Mary Poppins is blind and couldn't tell that that was in fact a nickle not a quarter
• When the cord hooking up your ipod to your car isn't long enough to reach to the back seat. 
• You hate your Christmas gift
• You hate your birthday gift
• You hate life...just kidding just wanted to go with the pattern

anyways those are just some of the things that I'm not grateful for.  you're welcome.  soooo yeah.

JUST TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!

I have a very particular taste in movies.  To the chagrin of everyone who has to watch them with me.  Most of my friends now will not watch any movies that I want to because somehow I have gotten this reputation of having absolutely no idea what "good entertainment" is.  This topic was brought to mind by me, yet again, being rebuked for recommending what I thought was a fantastic movie.  The movie in question?  Rock of Ages.  The charge being that "its totally unbelievable and the plot to easily resolved".  SOOO I am going to try and justify this movie and by doing that, my movie tastes hahaha.

First off this movie starts with a beautiful rendition of "Sister Christian" sung by an entire bus full of people that morphs into a "Just Like Paradise" and then ends with Alec Baldwin with long hair and Russel Brant as his usual raggedy Jesus self singing "Nothing but a Good Time" in what could be argued as one of the GREATEST HAIR BAND MASH UP BEGINNINGS OF A MUSICAL EVER so right off the bat...eff your face haters.  i  could end the whole argument here. 

Anyways so apparently this person doesn't like this movie because its unbelievable which is actually one of the main criticisms I get for what I like all the time.  And this is what I have to say to that....DUH!  Your sitting in a velvety seat eating 10 dollar popcorn watching a giant screen that images of people are projected on...does any of that sound real to you? No? BECAUSE ITS NOT REAL!  I don't want to pay 7+ dollars for them to show me a documentary! I want there to be explosions, graphics, zombie apocalypse, or someone falling madly in love within the first 15 minutes or I want my money back!  If I wanted to watch something real I would go to the damn woods and watch a tree grow!  Secondly, this is a musical movie, the most unreal of all movies ever.  So your argument is invalid yet again.  Thirdly the movie is about a small town girl moving to LA and making it big, falling in love, and having her boob grabbed by Tom Cruise, because all of those things are totally realistic!  No one wants to go to the movie "Small-town-girl-moves-to-LA-works-minimum-wage-and-becomes-a-prostitute-to -pay-her-bills-gets-pregnant-with-movie-rental-place-owner-and-starts-wearing-a-muumuu".  I want just enough reality to suck me in and then in enough ridiculous to distract me from my life. 

Secondly "the plot was resolved to easily".  My argument for this one rests heavily on the first premise that movies are in fact not real.  Real life is hard, and messy, and gross, and nothing works out that easy.  So why in thee blue hell would I pay money to see it!  Eff that I can just stay home and fight with my divorced parents!  Or spend 10 minutes talking to my teenage sister about her drama!  My absolute favorite thing about movies is it gives me completely unfounded hope that everything in my life is going to magically work out in the end because if  Mr. Sparks penned it, then I can live it gosh dang it!  It makes me happy! I like walking out of a movie saying "Wow Sandra Bullok really inspired me to love others and help the needy" not "MAN! I'm so glad everyone died in that movie and it was rainy the whole time!"  seriously. 

anyways that's my thoughts today.  Go buy the soundtrack to Rock of Ages.  You need it.

Explosians are not comfortable

I was told I had big boobs today and it totally changed my life.  I'm not kidding.  I was standing at work today with three other girls.  The one girl was leaning over the hostess stand and as a joke the other girl was all like "put those away before I get jealous!"  (It was funny i swear not gross hahaha) I then looked at her and say "Yeah seriously! I wish I had half of your good luck"  they then proceeded to all stare at me with this half quizzical half comical looks on their faces and said "Emily...you have big boobs".  BOOM!  Holy mother of paradigm shifts.

And here's a little education for your craniums inter-webs people!  In the Martin-Webster dictionary a paradigm has three definitions which you may choose to look up with on your own for I have not the finger strength to type it all out.... nor the patients.  Anyways a paradigm is defined as "an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype".  So therefor a paradigm shift is then a radical change in an underlying belief or theory.  I'm super smart, its whatever, you learn to live with it.

Genetically speaking I should have giant mounds of mammary glands.  We are curvy bunch, the Bell clan, what can I say.  When I was 10 I got my first training bra and I remained an A cup until I was in like....12th grade.  In stark contrast, however, my sister was a size D in 8th grade.  My mother! My Aunt! My grandmother! RACKS! Seriously! I had like negative amount of chestiness!  I owed back breast tax!  I matured past an A eventually but still I always have had small lady lumps because in comparison to everyone around me...they ARE tiny!

I looked these girls up and down and was like....oh my gosh....they have no boobs!  So compared to them I have tons of breasticles!  It suddenly began this huge thought avalanche through my whole brain! What other things in my life that I thought were beliefs were just misconceptions waiting to be shaken by the roots?!  Do I really look best in blue?  Is my favorite food really spaghetti?!  Maybe I should give yogurt a try even though I lie and tell everyone I hate it when in actually I just don't like the way it looks (its not a liquid its not a solid....its not going in my mouth).  Is the sky even blue?!

That's my life today. 

Keep calm and carry iocane

"Osmosis Jones" has forever ruined anatomy for me.  "And this class is a white blood cell! They live for about four to five days in the average human body..." "Uh pardon me professor but actually white blood cells can live to their mid twenties and are often times voiced by very funny black comedians" For those of you who don't know, "Osmosis Jones" was a movie made in the early 2000s about the human body where cells had personality's, drove cars, fought crime, and had raves inside of pimples.  Best. Movie. Ever.  So now every time I think of the brain I think of this scene from the movie where they're basically in a huge control room.  A perfectly working switch board of logic working in cohesion for the betterment of me.  Then here comes a giant plane of emotion driven by a crazed monkey........ nnnnnnnNNNNNNEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWBBBBBBBFFFFFFFFFFCCCCCHHHHHHHH!
totally ruining any sort if cognitive function. 

(an interesting aside.  Have you ever tried to verbally illustrate a well known sound and then realize you spent twice as much time on deciding if an explosion should end in "k" or "h" then writing the whole first paragraph? hm. carry on. )

And I am explaining all of this to you today por why you may ask?  Very simple.  I realized I do something very stupid very often today.  So say I'm texting someone, and lets just say for arguments sake that its someone important...like a boy person.  I am eagerly anticipating their response.  My phone is normally on silent but to be sure that I am immediately aware of their text I set it to both vibrate AND ringer.  A rational response to this is to put down the dang phone and do something else while you wait.  But no, I decide to text someone else while waiting so now every time my phone erupts I have a momentary feeling of hope and then instant disappointment that its person numero two!  So I hurriedly text them back and once again *ring-a-ding-ding*  "DAMN IT!"   Look out!  Incoming monkey! nnnnNNEEEOOOWNBBBBBBFFFCHHH!  I find myself getting unreasonably angry at this person who is not the boy who has the audacity to disturb me at this critical moment in my life!  Why can't she just leave me alone! wait... I was impatient, so to pass the time I texted someone else, who has no idea that they are just a time waster, so they respond, and now I'm mad....because I texted them first. 

So yeah....he texted me 10 minutes later.

"Excuse me while I kiss the sky!"

As a teenager I always wanted to get kissed in the rain.  Through the downpour, I would see my true love across a distant parking lot or football field after a fight or maybe even more tragically, a long separation!  We would start walking towards each other and then as the anticipation of meeting grew to great we would start to run!  Then I would leap into his arms and with that would come a beautiful kiss to end all kisses, sealing forever our undying love. Thank you rom-coms for that and many other embarrassing fantasies of my adolescent heart. 

Have any of you actually been kissed in the rain? It effing sucks!  First off,  he'll never be Ryan Gosling and you will never be living out "The Notebook" I'm sorry.  Secondly, its just too much of like.... everything!  You've got the whole "I'm-trying-to-live-up-to-my-dreams" thing going on which will inevitably let you down.   Then you've got the whole "for-the-love-of-all-things-holy-please- do-not-slip-and-drop-me-in-the-JCPenny-parking-lot" thing.  Also there's the minor detail of uuuuuuummmm THE FREAKING MONSOON!  If its in the fall then its gonna be cold, if its in the summer its gonna be humid as hell and for heavens sake its just too damn wet all around!  Wet kiss! Wet cloths! Wet water falling from the sky!  It gets in your eyes, it makes half of your face melt off. Unpleasant.  

However, I would recommend kissing someone in their car whilst listening to the 80's channel on Pandora.  Very Breakfast Club :)