Conversations with the exchange student

Me: Do you have black widows near where you live in Mexico?
Humberto: What?
Me: Yeah, they're scary. Right?
Humberto: I guess so...we just call them gangsters.
Me: Wait, what?
Humberto: You said "black weirdos," right?

Humberto: In the mornings, I am the baddest Mexican.
And sometimes I have to remember bowl or cereal first.

Humberto: I miss cigarettes.
Me: How much did you smoke in Mexico?
Humberto: At parties, maybe one...
Me: Oh. Well that's not very much.
Humberto: ...pack.

After a long silence at the dinner table
Humberto (To my sister): Why are you cracking your toes against my leg?

Conversations

Me: "AY, T-PAIN!"
Trevor: "Hello, Bethan."

Me: "Salutations, Trevastation!"
Trevor: "...Thanks..."

Terror

I have an irration fear of Somara, the girl from The Ring.

And by irrational I actually mean completely rational, because have you seen what she does to people? It is reasonable to be afraid of her.

Last night, I came home from somewhere and my roommate Marissa promptly dropped a bag of doritos on the floor in the hallway that leads to our bedrooms.

"Bethan," Marissa said, "I have dropped a bag of doritos. Can you grab the vaccum?"

Wondering vaguely why Marissa was carrying an open bag of doritos through the apartment, I went to get the vaccum. I opened the closet door.

For a second time froze as all my worst nightmares came true at once.

Somara was in the closet.

Somewhere in the depths of my diminishing sanity I knew it was my roommate with undead makeup on and black paint in her hair, but nonetheless I had a terror induced blackout and came to outside in my socks.

So I guess that solves the fight or flight dilemma.

Spoonful of Cinnamon

Some of my roommates and I took the spoonful of cinnamon challenge this week. For those who don't know, the rules of the challenge are these:

1) Eat a whole spoonful of cinnamon.

Seems easy, yes?
This is false.
First the cinnamon sort of sucks all the moisture out of your mouth, and then it catches on fire.

I did not complete the challenge.

Embarrassing

Me: "My family moved to Boise, but I don't tell people that because it's my secret shame."

Ian: "Yeah, that's incredibly embarrassing."

Me: "Hah. Thanks for the sarcasm Ian, I guess it's not that bad--"

Ian: "..No, I wasn't being sarcastic."

The Drinking Game

My cousin has this grand tradition called "Breakfast and a Movie," where on Saturdays he and his roommates invite people over to make pancakes or whatever and watch a comedy.

I mentioned this to a guy in my apartment complex and it quickly became a date. We went out for waffles and came back to watch the Bourne Identity. Meanwhile, I had a brilliant idea. We have a huge jug of white grapefruit juice in our apartment. It was a gift from someone when Emily was sick--supposedly it's supposed to cure all disease--and the stuff is so nasty that no one has touched it since then. Actually, no one touched it even then.

I grabbed the grapefruit juice and proposed the Early Morning Mormon Drinking Game. Play it yourselves at home! The rules will change depending on what movie you watch. Ours were as follows:

1) Drink whenever Jason Bourne kills someone
2) Drink whenever Jason Bourne humiliates someone
3) Drink whenever Jason Bourne says "I DON'T KNOW!"

Grapefruit juice is ideal for this kind of thing because it tastes awful and burns your insides, just like alcohol. We took our shots out of some tiny measuring cups that he had in his apartment, and I think I must have consumed the equivalent of ten grapefruits. The inside of my mouth was completely puckered. It was a good time.

Drink grapefruit juice wisely.

Not a Real Vegetarian

Ian came over the other night. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "So you're not a real vegetarian, right?"

I blinked. "Yeah, I guess not technically. I eat meat if I think it comes from a good source."

"Right. So, not real."

"Yeah, okay," I said, slightly saddened by not being real.

"It's a good thing!" He reassured me. "Because REAL vegetarians have something not right in their brains. They're like...half-evil."

Shocked by this bit of news, I asked for more detail.

"No," he said, shaking his head very seriously, "No. Just believe me, I've talked to some of them, and I know."

He refused to tell me any more.

The Emperor Loves Mushrooms

Eventually, my dinner group found out that I don't eat meat. I will explain that later. With that fact in mind, here is another story for you.

On Sunday night, I got a text from a boy in my dinner group asking how I felt about mushrooms. Our text conversation went as follows.

ME: Favorite fungus!
HIM: So you like them?
ME: Yeah!
HIM: Gooooooooood.
ME: Are you on mushrooms currently? Nobody gets this excited about regular mushrooms.
HIM: I was quoting the emperor from Star Wars.
ME: Missed that one.
HIM: Yeah, but the emperor never actually said anything about mushrooms, so you're okay.

Keep in mind this was completely out of the blue. I was highly confused.
The next day at dinner group, this fine young person was distributing chicken to everyone. When I got up to the stove, he handed me a stuffed portabello.

"This is why I was asking you about mushrooms last night," he said.
"My own mother doesn't do stuff like this for me!!" I exclaimed, tearing up slightly.

My mom actually does do stuff like that, because she's great. And I didn't actually tear up. But the fact remains, that shroom made my whole entire week. THE NICEST GUY.

Tandem Bicycling

I think I have more tandem bicycling stories than most people, on account of my friend Ian.

One fine night, I was panicking slightly because I had postponed my stargazing project for astronomy. Yes yes, okay, it's an easy assignment but I had to get somewhere outside the city limits to do it and nobody wanted to drive me out into the middle of nowhere on a school night with 15 minutes of notice. Just then, Ian appeared.

"Hello," he said.
"Hello," I replied, "Are you interested in driving out into the middle of nowhere tonight?"

Ian thought about this.

"Well, I want to ride the tandem," he told me.

So we rode that thing out to Rock Canyon Park, and I stargazed my heart out. On the way back, Ian suddenly steered us towards a really steep, grassy hill. Pedaling quickly became much harder.

"Aaaaaah!" I shouted. "We're gonna faaaaaall!"
"No we aren't!" Ian retorted incredulously.
"Okay!" I said, relieved.
We immediately fell over.

A brief explanation of our exchange student

This weekend I met up with the fam, including our exchange student from Mexico. I had just introduced him to my cousin or something, and he was being very quiet, so I said "He's a pretty serious dude."
Just then he goes "No, I am a heeelthy vampiiiire," and it suddenly became apparent that the reason he hadn't been talking was because he was busy wedging two giant celery sticks into his teeth.

Veggie Protein Slices

They're exactly what they sound like.

A girl from my apartment complex asked if I wanted a ride to the grocery, and it ended up being a super hippie healthy grocery store! So I bought these things called veggie protein slices that are marketed as fake sandwich meat. But I never call them that. I call them veggie protein slices for the descriptive and humerous qualities.
They are supposed to taste like turkey, but they are a very mysterious dark brown color.

When outside of a sandwich, they taste sort of grainy and salty and terrible.
When inside a sandwich, they taste like sandwich meat.

Normally that wouldn't be much of a compliment, but the makers of veggie protein slices set low goals for themselves.

Monday Post

For your viewing delight:

I won a sexy, sexy tote bag in an online writing contest. The prompt was to write a scary story in 250 words or less about being followed in a dark alley.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, PREPARE TO BE SCARED UNTIL YOU DIE.

It was cold and the night had been strange.

The alley looked longer than usual, stretching forward into garbage cans and dark shapes, unrecognizeable with soft edges, blurring into the night.

Everything was still. His footsteps were the only sound as he moved forward quickly, not as confident as he looked, acutely aware of the unearthy hour it was and the way the light was fading behind him, not following into the blackness ahead. His jacket wasn’t warm enough. He hugged it to his body anyway, feeling the cold seep in through each individual thread as he strained his eyes against the growing dark.

There wasn’t a specific moment when it dawned on him that he was being followed. There had been that uncomfortable feeling ever since he stepped into the alleyway, and it had crept up his spine and into his mind so gradually that he hadn’t noticed. There was a shadow in the alley with him, just out of sight. He would jerk his head to look at it sometimes, but it always danced away.

It stopped dancing after a while, though, it just stayed in the corner of his eyes until he turned one final time and it had solidifed into what must be a person, not just another shape but the tall dark outline of someone who had been following him for ages and ages. He started to run, but he already knew that the alley never ended.

Sunday Post

Today, my roommates and I turned our living room into a forest.

I tried to take a picture of it but that didn't work.

We found giant fall leaves and made them dangle from the ceiling, and put glow in the dark stars everywhere. Then we made a tent out of blankets. And we will be sleeping in the woods underneath the stars tonight on a pile of blankets, thank you very much.

Green Food Coloring as a Cosmetic

If you ever find yourself wondering what would happen if you rubbed green food coloring on your lips, don't do it. Because if you give in to temptation and put that crap on, a really attractive guy might call you and ask if you want to carve pumpkins with him. And you will have some explaining to do.

In all seriousness though. I had to scrub my lips. That was a new one.

I got it all off eventually.

Soulless

A few nights ago, this guy named Ian was talking about a friend of his with me.

"She's a vegetarian," he said, laughing at this absurdity, "We tease her about it so much. Vegetarians have no souls."

Saddended by this bit of news, I replied "Oh. I am one of them."

Ian looked taken aback.

"A vegetarian?"
"Yeah."
"Like...you don't eat meat?"
"Right."
"On purpose?"
"Actually it's this very frustrating condition where meat won't stay on my fork. I've tried everything. Superglue, putting my face on the plate, nothing helps."

Ian looked at me for a minute.
"Okay," he said.
We changed the subject.

Peace n' Blessings

In the Mormon religion, there is this thing where you can bless someone who is ill. A group of men put their hands on said person's head and pray over (for?) them to help them recover.

One Sunday, my beloved roommate Emily was very ill. She had lost her voice so badly that it was actually kind of hilarious.
...But mostly sad that she was sick.

So other roommates and I went to church and there was this dude Ben. And we said "Hey Ben. Emily would like a blessing aiight? Kbai."

Then we parted ways.

When church was over, I was in a jolly temperament. I bounced down the stairs to my apartment, singing loudly, and I swung the door open hard and fast and directly into the back of Ben's head as he prayed over my roommate.

I then immediately sprinted away.
So as not to disturb the prayer.




Don't worry I found him later and apologized and he wasn't even concussed.

An Effective but Impolite Technique for Dodging Meatloaf

One time, we had meatloaf in my dinner group.
When I arrived, I didn't know what it was. I went over to the stove and peered into the deep, mysterious pan with the sudden knowledge that I was doomed.
Oh no, I thought. I'm not sneaky enough for this.
"Take some!" the cook said happily, because this was a man who loved his meatloaf. I froze. I looked at the meatloaf. I looked at chef Jordan. He seemed to be planning on watching me until I served myself some hamburger-ketchup cake.
"I actually have to go," I told him, with what I hoped was an innocent, charming smile, "I just remembered."
Jordan seemed unfazed.
"Okay!" he said, "You can come over later and get some."

I left, I did some things, and I contemplated how rude it was to look at food someone had prepared for you and then tell them that you had to leave. My roommate and I returned to Jordan's apartment.

"Hello," he said, "Are you here for meatloaf?"
"No," I replied stoically, "I am here to confess."
Jordan was intrigued.
"I did not eat your meatloaf because I don't eat meat. Not because it looked gross. I felt bad for being so awkward about it."
Jordan processed this, bobbing his head slightly.
"Whoa," my roommate said, "Really?"
I gave her a serious look so she would know how deadly serious I was.
"Well, I knew something was up," Jordan said with the air of a detective revealing how the mystery had been solved, "But I wasn't offended. I just thought...she must not like meatloaf. More for me!"
Suddenly he stood up and headed into his kitchen.
"Do you want cereal?"
"What? Uh, no thanks."
"I have a lot of apples..."

For a moment I didn't understand what had filled him with the desire to start giving me all his food.

"Thanks but I'm good, I didn't come tell you this so you'd feel obligated to give me something else, I promise--"
"I could make you nachos. Like, just with cheese. Not with meat."
"Jordan you are the best but really, you don't need to feed me."
"Look, I have a whole bag of clementines."
"...Okay I will eat a clementine."


So everything went better than expected, and although I don't have hard evidence, I am almost positive that Jordan has since forgotten the whole thing, including my vegetarianism.

Roommates

I really like my roommates. They are great at cheering me up even when they don't realize that they are cheering me up. For example, last night we ended up reading all the foods on this website over and over and laughing like fools for about half an hour.

You should try it. Out loud is much funnier than to yourself.

Another reason I like them is because, as far as I can tell, none of us are morning people. This is perfect because I have a really, really hard time with morning people. If I recall correctly when I woke up this morning, the only thing that anyone said for about the first hour of me being awake was "whoa, dense cotton ball."
Which I appreciated, firstly because cotton balls with unexpected density can be alarming and secondly because I don't regain my ability to communicate until 10 am or so.

Avoiding Slabs of Chicken

I am in a dinner group, the members of which are not aware that I do not eat meat. I am terrible at being sneaky. So terrible.

Today, Trevor--a delightful young man in my dinner group who loves his protein--made giant slabs of chicken with salad and bread. Normally, I can eat the sides and dodge the meat and life is cool. BUT TODAY, Trevor was distributing the meat-slabs.
"Which one do you want?" he inquired politely.
"Ummmm no thank you," I responded in a casual, devil-may-care attitude, turning to the salad as though this were no big deal.
"Hey wait," he said, "You can't skip the main course. That's not normal."
"I," I said quickly, thinking on my feet, "IIII ate a bowl of chocolate cheerios when I got home from school and now I just need healthy food to balance it out."
Trevor narrowed his eyes.
"Chocolate cheerios?"
"Yep. Yeeeep."
"Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah!" I said with a winning laugh, grabbing my garlic bread and dashing to the couch.
"Okay," Trevor said, "I'll put a piece in a tupperware and you can eat if for lunch."
"That sounds...fantastic!"

Time passed. Small talk was made and a football game played in the background. I waited for the perfect opportunity. When Trevor seemed completely immersed in the game, I leapt to my feet. "Thanks Trevor! Bye guys!" I shouted, making a beeline for the door.
"Wait--" Trevor began to say, so obviously I immediately shut the door and made like a bolt of lightening down the stairs and into my apartment.

...It would probably be better just to tell people that I do not want their meat products.