Elder Campbell’s Parting Words

“I’m not even began to be packed.” ~James

Little brother is now in the MTC preparing to serve an LDS mission in the Dominican Republic. Clearly, he was already forgetting his English before he had even left.

Stepping Off of the Emotional Rollercoaster

There are some days where I feel full. It’s not from breakfast.

These are the days when I feel like emotion surrounds me. Like it’s a thick cloud around me that I swim through to find the reality of life—of sitting at a desk, pounding away at the keyboard to earn every penny of my paycheck.

But it’s not a crushing cloud. It’s just there. Tangible.

I won’t name what some of the emotions are. I won’t tell you because they’re mine and I’m selfish. I want all of my emotions to myself.

But then somebody comes over to talk to me and I have to push all of the emotions away.

And so, even though my day feels full, I have to box it all up where I can’t see or feel it. I have to do this so that I can be involved in the conversation with the person in front of me, so that I can sit at my desk and focus on the work filling up my task list, so that I don’t get overwhelmed by all of the emotions filling up the cloud.

Because they are boxed up, the day is flat. No emotions pulling me down, but also no emotions lifting me up. You could probably say that I’m self-medicated, this thing that I do to box it all up, pack it away where it gets dusty in the dark because I never come back for it. I don’t label the boxes. They go into deep storage, and I forget all of the rich feelings like euphoria, love and exhilaration, but also I forget the exhausting feelings like agitation, loneliness, and melancholy.

Instead, I am just here. Simply.

Just here.

But sometimes, I can focus really hard and let just ONE emotion out of the box. I try and focus hard enough to let it only be one of the rich feelings.

So this morning, I focused on a memory from the weekend: a Peregrine falcon flying up the banks of the Snake River. I tried to ONLY let that memory in and felt some exhilaration from seeing my favorite bird in flight. But then, as seems to happen so often, a few other memories escaped and some of the exhausting feelings crept out of the box. Damn.*

I shut the lid, stopped the cloud from seeping out anymore and went back to work. Flat again.

I am just here.

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*As a side note there were many other memories from the weekend that would also be rich feelings, with a few, very few, that are on the downside of the emotional rollercoaster. Very few. And yet, I seem to amplify those low feelings so easily that all of the joys and excitement can be quickly overwhelmed and forgotten. I will only do that today, though. Because tomorrow is always sunny. Eventually, my memory will ONLY recall the positive feelings and I will be left with an incredible experience of camping, rafting, and creating friendships.

A Little Poetry from the Journal

I have a rule about my journals. I’m not allowed to tear pages out. It doesn’t matter if I’ve written something incriminating, if I’ve completely changed my opinions or if I’ve tried to draw a cartoon and didn’t like the finished product ONE BIT. The page must remain.

When I lived with my parents after graduating from college, I had a rushed move from Provo to Salt Lake so I didn’t really go through my stuff or carefully pack up boxes. I found, one day, a very random scrap of paper. It had clearly been torn out of my journal. The handwriting was mine. The experience, I remembered. I didn’t remember writing the poem and I didn’t remember tearing out the page.

I only remember the experience, now recorded as a memory in this poem:

“A Faded Trail”

Nothing’s left but faded memories.
I stopped, ignored the warnings.
I didn’t listen to a word,
found myself awake in mornings
hearing sounds I’d never heard.
And inside the walls had crumbled.
I could feel forgotten tears
all at once, proud and humbled,
full of courage, full of fears.
Welcomed back into the color,
I then wondered what I’d missed,
thought myself filled up with valor
as I searched and I wished
to find a scrap of memory
a taste or smell that might remind.
I could only look in front of me.
The trail faded out behind.

Mmm, Obituary Pie… Why is it Called Obituary Pie?

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-™ is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!*

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Last Week’s Winner: Zedd! Way to be Zedd… one of my favorite friends on Twitter, too, who offers me advice about how to one day be almost as geeky as he is. What a winner!

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*And by GO!, I mean COMMENT!

Can You Flush a Toilet Handle?

“We asked Google, if you can flush a toilet handle. No one’s ever googled it before.” Maren

Until now…

Episode 48: Improving my PC Posture

A chiropractor once joked with me about how we’ve DE-evolved. If we started out hunched over as apes, then eventually stood up straight like men, we’ve gone back to hunching over like apes again. Blame Bill Gates or Steve Jobs; pick your poison.

I came into work the other morning, and sat down at my desk. Oh super, I thought, another day of typing, not answering the phone (since it doesn’t ring), and feeling exhausted by 2:00 p.m. The exhaustion, is brought on by my posture, not so much by the work. When I first accepted my job, part of my negotiations included a very nice, ergonomic chair. They said yes, because they knew my lower back is past its prime and would complain constantly otherwise. Poor lower back. It needs a cane.

Since then, my mid and upper-backs have been complaining. My lower back would probably like to tell them to shush up already because they don’t have any herniations to complain about. But, they’re still fussy and they get louder and whine more as the day progresses.

So I started stretching. Turns out, there are plenty of ways to help my back evolve back to that of a man and leave my ape ways behind.

1. Switch up the mouse every so often. I know, if the mouse is on the left-side, it seems awkward or we feel the need to make fun of the south paws. Don’t. It’s actually good to change that up so you’re not always just reaching for the clicker with your right hand. Also, it’s good brain stimulation to have to click with your middle finger.
2. Put your keyboard on your lap. This, however, is more difficult than it sounds unless you have a wireless keyboard. I still struggle with getting the wire to allow me to pull my keyboard down to my lap to type and then allow me to set the thing back on the desk when it’s time for a bathroom break.
3. Every time I send an email, I drop my shoulders. Throughout the day, I have a tendency to hunch my shoulders up. This happens every time I look at the hours remaining on one CERTAIN project where I’m not the biggest fan of one of the coworkers involved. Turns out, this is how I handle stress so I’m trying to help myself relieve it by rolling my shoulders back and down every time I hit SEND.
4. I stretch on the roller. We have a gym onsite here at work and one of the nice quirks is that it’s stocked with foam rollers. So on particularly bad days, I’ll take a 15-minute break to go and lie down on one of those, with the roller running the length of my spine, and make snow angels in the carpet. Is nice.
5. I raised my monitors. I don’t want to hurt my neck by looking down at an angle to my monitors so I found a couple of phonebooks (so high tech, right?) and lifted both of those bad boys up to a nice height. Feels better.
6. I stretch against the wall. Another stretch that really helps me (because my mid back is über tight) is to lean up against the wall, knees bent so my entire spine is against the wall, then put my shoulders and elbows against the wall so I look like I’m being held up by a bank robber. I then slowly raise my arms until they touch over my head without letting my shoulders, elbows or wrists come off of the wall. Okay. I totally lied right there. Most people can do that just fine. I, however, can only move my arms up a few inches. It’s sad, but I have really high hopes for one day touching my hands together. One day.

Also, there’s some good stretches here: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/01/improve-your-hunched-over-pc-posture.html

Haunted in Dreams by the Caller ID.

Do you remember caller IDs? Well, it’s not like they’ve gone away, but they’ve become so ubiquitous that we don’t single them out as a technology in our lives anymore. They’re expected. Back when I was 18, though, they were still notable enough to be the subject of a dream and therefore, a journal entry. Also, I wish I was in Lake Powell right about NOW.

7/21/99

I did not sleep much last night. I woke up cold. I woke up thirsty. I woke up sore. I woke up missing a friend. I still remember what I had dreamt just before waking up the last time:

I was home. In my mind, I was thinking I was home from Lake Powell, but the thoughts were confusing. I remember wanting to check the Caller ID. The one in the kitchen was gone. I did not want my dad to see me check the other one. Then—scene change, as is so often in dreams—I knew someone was looking over my shoulder. I could not turn to see who, but felt their presence. All I could see was a blue screen. Not what most caller IDs look like, I know. But there I was, looking over the past days’ callers. I searched for one name in particular. I could not stop myself from doing this although my logic told me I ought to. However, it was not there.

A little more dreaming and I woke up. Still in Lake Powell, still sore, still thirsty, but warm under a thin sheet and one cover.

What to do when you forget your hat

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-™ is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!*

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Last Week’s Winner: Due to his great grammar—“someone so small could speak as good”—the winner is deltalimagolf. Way to go, contracted developer man. You actually know how to do your job and therefore, people respect you. Good work. You’re not currently around, though, to hear about some other contractor who “worked from home,” but was difficult to get a hold of, didn’t come in one day, but said maybe he’d work from home and eventually, even got all of marketing complaining about the amount of money spent and nothing to show for it. I came up with a nickname for him: Impediment. Anyway, way to win, deltalimagolf. Catch you in the twitterverse.

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*And by GO!, I mean COMMENT!

Men Are Like Fish…

“I love you like a fish loves water. That means if I get out of the water, I die.” ~Freddy

Happiness is a Day off Work

I had an amazing weekend.

Amazing.

I had an amazing day today.

Again, amazing.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow and ruin my high.

Aren’t you wondering why I’m on such a high? Many reasons:

• Men*
• Girlfriends
• Siblings
• Nieces/nephews
• Food
• Sleep (kind of)
• Grandma’s Garden
• Grumma’s laugh
• Funny RomComs**
• Carnival games
• Not working
• Cockroaches
• Music
• Hot tubbing
• Haircuts
• and Food. Mmm, food.

So I’m in pretty awesome spirits and I didn’t even play soccer this weekend (or for 5 more weekends). And now, I’m watching the Bachelorette. Gotta love reality TV with oodles of handsome men.

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*Intentionally plural. I do like men in general.

**A.k.a. Romantic Comedies, in particular The Proposal this weekend. Good movie and good company.