The Fam

Why am I still awake? I just drove home (12 hours) from Logan back to Seattle, I got home at 4:30 in the morning, it's now 7:30 and I'm still awake. Why, you ask? Well, because I have a problem. I am addicted to facebook. And blogging. I spent an absolutely wonderful fathers day weekend with my family, and I got through the whole thing without getting online once --it was oddly refreshing :) But the first thing I did when I got home and unpacked, was not getting ready for bed. This would have been a much smarted plan. Instead I decided I'd make a quick check of my email and facebook and blog. Well, after 6 days, the stuff that you usually clear out every day accumulates, and here I am, finished reading everyone's updated blogs and catching up on all my updates and notifications from facebook. I decided that I would just write a quick not to explain that I have the greatest family ever! (Then I'm really going to bed!)

I LOVE my family!!!!! I spent the last six days doing nothing but hanging out with them (with the exception of a 2 hour lunch with an 'old' friend :) ) and it was fantastic! I can't describe the pure joy that it is to eat dinner with my family. For more reasons than just that I get to eat wonderful home made food that I didn't have to cook. You will never laugh so hard as at dinner with my family, as many of you can attest to. I have the funniest little sister in the world. She is an absolutely wonderful person. She is straight forward, says exactly what's on her mind, has an opinion on everything, and is 100% herself all the time. And it is hilarious! I love that about her!

I love just chillin and watching tv or the latest ball game on tv with my dad. I love that when I come home, I still can go outside and spend an hour or two playing catch with my dad in the back yard --even if my arm is still sore 2 days later. I love that in order for him to fully enjoy the fresh salmon and king crab legs I got him for fathers day, he had to show me how to run the grill :) and we had a great time doing it. I have the greatest dad in the world! I have the greatest brother in the world. He is so sweet --don't tell anyone :) He truly cares about people ...all people. He is a friend to everyone, and I really admire the way he jumps in and helps his friends out with whatever they need. Whoever ends up with him is going to be one lucky girl! And my cute mom! She's the greatest too! How did I get to be so lucky! I love that I can go to midnight movies and stay up talking all hours into the night about anything with my mom, and I love that she lets me sleep in till noon :) She is an amazing woman ...I hope one day and can be just like her ...or almost ;) I love that she and Heidi got scooters, and taught me how to ride them! Well ...significantly past my bedtime, so until next time!

Why?

So I may be just a bit bitter, and this rant may be hormone induced (I'm sure at least part of it is.) And all of you should feel free to leave your comments and opinions on all the above and all of what follows. See here's the thing. Girls like to be liked. It makes you feel good when boys come up and talk to you. Girls like to be hit on. Really. Even if you don't like the person that's hitting on you, the line was awful, and you're not attracted to them at all, it still makes you feel good. Even if you turn the guy down and later laugh about it with your friends, deep inside you feel just a little bit good about yourself that someone wanted to meet and talk to you. No matter who it was. Now it's a little different when it's a drunk psych patient restrained in the hallway at work (that's just never ok). Now, here's the problem. And I almost hesitate to write this, because I don't want it to come across the wrong way, but those of you who know me well will get it. I'm a good girl. I go to church nearly every week, I do my best to live the right way. I have morals and I have standards. I lived in Utah and went to Utah State for 6 years. I was active in my student wards, and had the best roommates and friends. We always had a ton of fun. Dating though? Not so much. I just figured it was not the thing people did any more. After all, my friends (boys and girls) dated as rarely as I did. I spent a majority of my time there wondering how people actually met and got married.

Then I moved away. I went to New York. Then Orange County, CA. Now Seattle, WA. I found the same thing held true in student wards across the country. If good little Mormon boys were dating, they weren't dating me, or anyone who didn't seem to be an 18 year old size 2 blonde. The thing I discovered though is that the problem isn't with young people my age, it was with good little Mormon people my age. People of other faiths didn't seem to have this strange aversion to dating. It was really quite refreshing to be walking down the street and have people come up and start talking to you. It was great to be dancing in a club with friends and have people buy you drinks (even if it's a waste of their money since you won't be drinking them). It's a lot of fun to go out with friends and have the bartender give you you're first round --and 2nd --and 3rd. Again, not that my diet coke is that expensive, but my friends who do drink are doubly grateful that I don't drink. I'm a great designated driver, and they get to share all the free drinks that I don't drink. It doesn't really matter what the men's alternative motives are, or how much they have already had to drink. It just makes you feel good, that for whatever reason they were paying attention to you. That sounds a little sad, but it's true. Perhaps if the 'right' 'good kind' of boys paid more attention to the good little girls, we wouldn't be so attention starved that it didn't matter what the alternative motives are.

I see the holes in this blog, I really do. Perhaps the good little Mormon boys don't want to pay that much attention to people that are around people who are drinking and dancing in clubs. That may be. I understand that there will be people who feel this way. Here's my rationalization. I understand that bars and clubs are not the place to meet the kind of person I want to meet. That is not why I am there. I am there to be with friends and have a good time. I would like nothing more than to meet a nice boy at church or at some church related activity, but the past nearly 10 years of my dating experience leads me to believe that this is not going to happen. This is not the point of this post. The point is not about who I (or any of the other 'good' mormon girls that I've met in my travels) am dating or not dating. The point is that in my bitter jaded old age, have decided that this is the venue for me to vent my frustration to all the good little LDS boys out there (yes, I know there are none of them reading this blog, it doesn't make sense, but when has that stopped me before?) Date darnit! If that is too much to ask, just try a couple lines now and then. You don't have to want to marry the girl, you don't have to even like her really. Just show her that it is possible that someone more than the people she meets in a bar or around town thinks that she is worth talking to. Pay the girls at church a little bit of attention. Go up to them, smile and say something simple like, hi. Compliment them. Tell them their dress is nice, or their hair looks nice, or they smell good. A compliment ...any one will do. Then you can go on your merry way and continue your life as previous.

A girl can really get a complex if she is only getting hit on by people she can't have. The truth of human nature is that we want to be liked. We want to fit in. Many people much smarter than I will tell you that the need to belong is stronger than the need for food, and even health and well being.

Now, mom, if you're reading this, don't worry. I still go to church, I still don't drink, I'm still the little girl you know and love, and I have no immediate plans to change any of that. I'm not depressed, I have not giving up on getting married to a good little Mormon boy --not entirely. There's always the millennium for that. Or I could convert my own. The sad part is, whenever I've considered this option, I find myself reluctant to do so in fear that when converted he will catch the 'I don't date' disease that is a pandemic among young LDS men. It's quite possibly the most selfish a person can be, but I like him just the way he is ...flirty and bad habits and all. The last thing I want to do is bring him to church and risk him catching the 'I only date 18 year old size 2 blondes' disease. Awful! I know. Before I left Utah, I didn't realize that there were men over the age of 21 who wanted nothing to do with 18 year old girls! OK, bitter diatribe over :) At least for those of you who can't hear the voices inside my head :)

The Breakfast Club

Mmm, breakfast! Let me explain a couple things for those of you who may not have any experience working night shift in a ER. Your co-workers are your family. The doctors, nurses, techs, respiratory therapists, firefighters, cops, paramedics, etc that you work with are the closest kind of family there is. It's like the dead dads club from Grey's Anatomy. You can't be in it till you're in it. Lots of people can understand parts of your day and parts of your job, but you just can't know until you've been there night in and night out and seen all the best and worst that humanity has to offer. I've worked in other places, and I think that you get close to your coworkers no matter where you work or the profession that you're in, but nothing compares to the ER. Like I said, you can't know until you know, so I'm not going to sped a lot of time trying to explain. Lots of people go out to eat with coworkers after work, but it's not the same. When a group of us gets together to unwind, only we can understand the pain on each other's faces over the 9 month old we were unable to save after he was beat by his parents, The baby who died after being on a ventilator for a month after it was born at 25 weeks and weighing less than a pound. The look on the family's face who is suddenly without one or both parents because of some drunk driver, and watching them trying to deal with that while not being able to tune out the crazy drunk person across the department shouting profanities at the top of his lungs. See, now I'm getting away from the point of this post ...believe it or not, it wasn't to make you sad, or to point out what we deal with at work --it really is just another day to us. It has to be, or else it would eat us alive.

The point was, that we have a great time every Friday morning at breakfast. It's our own little breakfast club. Some of us get off at 5:30, and others don't get off till 7:30. The bar opens at six (yes, the bar ...nope, still don't drink :) ) so those of us that get off at 5:30 play pool, or just hang out and talk until our 7:30 friends get there, then we order food, play some more, and enjoy not having other people's lives in our hands. It's kind of like our own little therapy where we repress all the depression and carnage from the week before deep down inside because we can't talk about it outside of work to any one. Privacy laws. But we all know. It's part of the club. I love breakfast days! It's one of the things I'm going to miss the most when I leave this place, so I thought I'd share it with you. The following pics are from breakfast last Friday, where we said goodbye to Anne, one of the travellers that works with us.