All because one person was comfortable with profanity

Zach asked me out on our first date exactly four years ago. At the time I wasn't even sure of his name.

Supposedly we actually had two classes together in my first few years at BYU, but we didn't really meet until we were both members and officers in the BYU Democrats. I had started getting involved the past fall semester, while he was living in Germany. I was comfy with the group dynamic, and then all of a sudden there was this weird new guy who started coming and talking like he belonged. Which, having been involved for years, he did, but I didn't know that. I was just kind of annoyed by him. He had apparently noticed me a little more favorably than I noticed him, and more importantly, he thought he had noticed one of the other guys noticing me and felt the need to step things up. If I was more into economics I'd say something clever about scarcity or supply and demand or something. But I'm not, so I won't. Point is, he finally decided to do more than just hang out and get somewhat annoyed looks from me.

For one of our Dem meetings, we were pretty much just hanging out and writing letters to various legislative people. Zach sat next to me and quickly struck up a conversation. I wasn't particularly thrilled. Having purposely chosen my seat because it was near the club's official hot guy, being obligated to talk to the guy I didn't really know but was vaguely annoyed by was a little frustrating. But he kept talking to me, I kept replying, and before I knew it we had spent an hour chatting away. It was almost fun. The meeting ended, but we kept right on talking as he walked home with me (I thought it was on his way home, it was actually the exact opposite direction from his apartment). Even with all the easy flowing conversation, I still didn't have any interest in him. I was having fun, but the idea of this guy as a possible romance hadn't really crossed my mind.

And then, in the middle of chatting away on my doorstep, he swore. And hot damn, I swear I had to fight to keep myself from falling into a classic old movie swoon. Those four little letters were just about the sexiest thing I'd ever heard. Just a little thing, a damn or a hell, but nothing but a handful of awkward first dates and flirtations with some very nice but painfully bland guys, and me generally feeling like I didn't fit in, that one little word turned him from some random guy, into a person of interest.

Anyone whose ever met Zach would laugh at the idea of him being considered a "bad boy". But this was BYU and that one little word may as well have been . It was damn sexy and all of a sudden he wasn't some random guy who was kind of fun to talk to, he was a free thinking rebel who I wanted to push against the wall and have my way with (I was also not a sweet little BYU girl). So when he suggested getting together and watching a movie on Friday, I was all over it.

And that's the story about how swearing led to my marriage.

Back

So, apparently I decided to just abandon my blog for almost a month, leaving a filler post of puppets as my last known words to the internets. Oops.

Well, to update in brief - law school scary stress blah blah soul crushing etc. Not the most fun couple of weeks, and while I certainly support keeping the realism in blogging, sometimes even I don't want to just listen to me complain and freak out. Fortunately life is back to normal levels, and I really miss blogging. Life just isn't as fun without text based interactions between internet people.

I do feel a little sheepish for coming so close to making my blog every day for a year goal, and just kind of letting go. Oh well. Life happens. I keep telling myself that if I just go back and post things back dated, I can kind of still make it, but that's just not going to happen. What will hopefully happen is that I'll keep right on writing, only hopefully more for the sake of wanting to than an artificial goal. So, hopefully less puppet filler. I'm going to finally finish up my Europe vacation recaps, get back in the habit of commenting elsewhere and just generally have a grand time. 

The Internet Knows Everything About Me, Meh.

I don't really care about my privacy on the internet. At all. And I don't understand those who freak out. Oh no, facebook can take the things that you typed for all to see and tell people! Or today, when living social was doing that great $20 Amazon card for $10, a few people on facebook scoffed at those taking advantage of that deal for not reading the fine print where livingsocial can now sell your soul to the devil. Or do whatever they want with the stuff you told them. Whatever. (I didn't read the fine print)

Please. If I wasn't already giving it away for free, I would totally sell my privacy for $10 on Amazon. Because what no one has been able to show me is how anything that is done with the fairly generic information that I willingly put out into the internet is bad for me.

Now, if the internet could turn on my webcam and broadcast my oh so exciting sexcapades, or as is more likely me sitting in front of the computer  eating jo-jos, that would be bothersome. Or selling my credit card number to the highest bidder, that would also be bad. But telling someone what I bought? Or even what my age and address are? Who cares.

It's not like the stuff is being sold wholesale to the highest bidders on stalkersandserialkillers.com. It's pretty much just being compiled to give to advertisers so they can more specifically target their ads. Not that big of a deal. I'd rather see ads for Zappos than penis enhancement anyways. Besides, this type of data has always been gathered. I spent an entire internship doing regressions of consumer databases to see which company was most useful for campaigns. While it is a little crazy to see how much they can tell about people (diseases, income, party affiliation, donations, pets, favorite vacation spots, and almost everything else) it's not used for anything that nefarious. Just selling things (politicians kind of count as things). And they were going to so that anyways. I don't see how helping them do it slightly better really hurts me. And come on, $10.

Texts

I woke up at 3am last night, when my phone that I forgot to silence and was far to close to my head beeped very loudly as it got a text. Assuming that no one who actually cared about me would text at such an hour, I rolled over and went back to sleep for the next few hours. It wasn't particularly enjoyable after that rude interruption, but I still got up at the normal time and got all nice and ready for the day. Before leaving to catch the bus I had a few minutes to sat down to check e-mail, etc. Which was bittersweet, as the first message was informing me that due to icy roads, morning classes were canceled. Ordinarily a nice thing, an invitation to sleep in and enjoy, but when you're already wide awake and likely to stay that way it just feels mocking.

And that text message, that horrid sleep wreaking text message I didn't check? That was a message giving me early warning about the school closure.

Back to slightly more normal

Whew. It seems silly to say, because not only has school been going on for about a week, and I've been home from the great big vacation for longer than that, but I think I finally feel a little more integrated back into normal life. Last week felt like a horrible dream. What do you mean, I'm expected to actually be doing things and functioning like a responsible adult? Read stuff? Actually turn things in? What kind of nonsense are you talking about. Ah, it was a bitter, unproductive week were I felt very put upon by all the people and things expecting me to actually do stuff. I think I'm ready to just be back to regular levels of laziness. Which still means I don't want to do actual work sometimes, but I recognize that is a problem with me, not the work, and so I actually do stuff.

So far today I have successfully done the reading for one class,  cleaned up the pile of laundry that has been on my desk for weeks, put away dishes, load pictures to facebook, finally got my g-reader down to 100 from way too many (it kind of felt like work). And now I'm writing this. A few more clinic things before bed, and I am so ready to be normal this week.

Tree

We still have our itsy-bitsy Christmas tree up. Even though the lights have died. But, it still makes me happy every time I see it, so it'll probably stay up until it starts inspiring feelings of guilt instead.

My Mess is Lonely

Zach has been really fantastic in the housekeeping department lately. Not that that is new, he's generally been way better than lazy bones me. I walk in every day to find not just the normal stuff, dishes, vacuuming, etc, taken care of, but also some new big thing that we've put off forever. And clutter? Forget it, that's nowhere to be seen.

Except for the part where my my desk and other places that stuff just gathers until I put it where I go look twice as worth when contrasted with a sparkling shoebox. The obvious solution would be to pick up my crap, but right now I'm going with the wistfully hoping just a little of Zach's mess will come back to keep mine company.