getting hit on at a bar: an odd cliche

BYU has been rated the #1 stone-cold sober school for the last 20 years. There's not a big "bar scene" here.

Last night I went to a concert at the closest thing BYU has to a club--"The Wall." My friend's band was playing, so I went to go see him there. I left my pregnant friend at our table, and went to the "bar" counter to get us two glasses of water. 

I'm standing at the counter and I hear a guy saying, "hey. Psst! Hey!" Until I look over and find a young man with his fist holding up his chin, the other hand around his drink (lemonade I think) sitting at the bar, trying to get my attention. 

"Yes...?"

"Can I tell you a secret?"he shout-whispers over the music. 

"Sure"

"You're beautiful" 

I laugh, awkwardly. He was almost charming. certainly bold."Thanks."

(Had I been on my game, I would have said, "That's not a secret!" missed it.)

"Can I tell you another secret?"

"uh... sure?"

"'s not really a secret, it's a question." 

"Ok" He was acting a little drunk frankly. I'm 100% certain he wasn't. Perhaps this pseudo-bar-esque atmosphere just makes people a little weird. 

"How tall are you?"

"5'9". how tall are you?"

how long does it take to fill 2 glasses of water??

"6'1""

"good height" 

"really?" he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Like that was the most wonderful thing he'd heard all year.

"Hey--you got any sweet plans for the weekend?"

"uh... I dunno" 

"well here!"He whips out a pen, and a napkin, and slides them both across the bar. "give me your number and maybe we can make some."

Shoot. I should've seen that coming. I didn't want to be rude. and I feel like he had the guts to ask, and I'm stuck here waiting for my water... What was the guy doing? getting the oxygen and hydrogen molecules separately to watch the chemical reaction turn to liquid? 

He got a funny little side smile at his  accomplishment in obtaining my number. And I caught a glance at the shirt he was wearing: "You don't need a permit for these guns" with two arrows pointing at his biceps. Classy. 

Finally my waters were handed to me over the counter. 

"I'll see you later" he called as I turned to go back to my table.

When I arrived, my friend, having observed the whole ordeal, was laughing out loud. 

"That was wonderful" She said through giggles.

"Shut up" I said playfully, "the sacrifices I make to bring you water!"

"I'm so glad I'm not still single. Single life is the worst!"

Truth. 

Searching for Signal

A little while ago, a big group of friends (a Nauvoo reunion for those of you who know what that is) went down to Southern Utah for an adventure. Monday morning: sandwiches packed, granola bars in hand, maps at the ready, everyone was set to drive to our destination trail head to start the hike. We stop at the visitor's center to clarify our route, and I look at my phone to check the time.

 A little bit of back story: for the past month, I've been desperately job searching. I'd been rejected, I'd exhausted my resources, and the only jobs I got were "direct advertising" and "financial planning" which is euphemistic for Sam's Club and Insurance sales.

I was waiting to hear back from my ONE, LAST, HOPE for summer employment. I'd interviewed with them the week before and they told me they'd let me know by the beginning of the next week.

So here we are, Monday at 11:00am. I have one missed call, from an unknown Utah number, and a new voice message. But I can't check the voice mail because we have NO service in the depths of Capital Reef National Park. 

You can imagine my distress. What if they're calling me to tell me I didn't get it? Or what if they're calling to say I did?! What if they need me to call them back ASAP with.. I don't know...insurance info? Or a work-email password? Or my shoe size? I've never had a real-life grown-up job--that could be a thing.

So my sweet friend, David Thunell, offers to drive me out of the canyon until I get service so I can check my voice mail and hear my fate for the rest of the summer. Everyone lovingly complies and agrees to wait for us at the base of the trailhead. We wind slowly out of the canyon, with little bits of cell service, coming in and out. My angst growing by the second. Finally we reach a place with a comfortable 3 bars, and I call my voice mail and hear the demonic, automated words:

"You've reached the voice mail box of ____Averill Corkin__ Please leave a message" BEEP

"Thunell!" I panic, "There's something wrong. When I call my voice mail, it won't let me check it, it wants me to leave a message. This has never happened before."

"We can call it on my phone. Do you know your password?"

"No." I'm useless. My future career is a button click away, and the stupid button won't click correctly!

"Here, I'll leave you another message" He calls me on his phone, we hear: "You've reached the voice mail box of ____Averill Corkin__ Please leave a message. BEEP"

"Sister Corkin!" In his best pick-up-line voice (which is very smooth, Thunell, by the way), "How bout you and I hang out a little bit later, ya? I'll call you later to make sure you say yes ;)"

New Voice Message appears on my screen. I click the button. 

What I should hear is "You have two new Voice messages. To listen to your messages press one" but instead I hear, "You've reached the voice mail box of ____Averill Corkin__ Please leave a message" BEEP

GAH!

We turned off and on the phone, we checked my data, we checked my email, everything we could think of. My heart was pounding faster by the minute.  

Finally the message came through as a visual voicemail. I listened with baited breath. Then gave the OK to drive back to the trailhead and report the news to my family waiting there. 

As we pulled in, the YPMs gathered around the car with hopeful faces. Whisperings of "did she get it?"..."she's smiling!" ..."That's a good sign!" until I popped out of the car and reported:

"That was Michelle, from the office on State Street" 

"And...?"

"And she was calling to remind me I have an orthodontist appointment tomorrow at 2:00"

Everyone burst out laughing with relief and grief at the same time. We then had a wonderful hike and a wonderful weekend. 

And when 2:00 rolled around the next afternoon, I spaced and missed my orthodontist appointment completely. 

Colorado Diet

One of the greatest joys of going home to your parents' house is the ability to open a fully-stocked refrigerator, and eat whatever looks good. Most college students would attest to that statement. In Provo,  I eat a steady diet of Oatmeal Squares cereal and cheese sticks, so this semester, especially, I was looking forward to a healthy variety of fuel. However, this morning, as I was rummaging through my parents' pantry, I was hit with a bit of a predicament.


Let me tell you a little about my parents:
My parents go through phases.

They pick something and go ALL IN, whatever it is. They buy every book on the subject, read every article, go to every big site, join every club. They become decently good experts on any given subject, and then move on to the next phase.

I could write a book about the different phases, but some highlights include
-electric train modeling
-horseback riding
-fly-fishing
-rock tumbling/polishing
-motorcycling (mom wasn't thrilled about that one)
-bird watching (also probably not my mom's favorite thrill)
-have-a-heart squirrel hunting
-gardening
-barbecuing
-photography/underwater photography
-open water canoeing
-tennis playing
-scuba diving

Not to mention the many diets they have come in and out of:
-Gluten-free
-Dairy-free
-Sugar-free
-Vegetarian
-Vegan
-Paleo (i.e. basically veggies, nuts, and meat)

and various combinations of the six.

Which leads me to the point of this story.

I have no idea what this current diet phase is called, but when I opened the pantry door to look for breakfast, I was greeted with this:

My predicament was that I didn't even know how to consume any of this... 

I finally saw something that looked like cereal. And settled on pouring organic almond milk on top.

I'm going to eat my bowl of Veganic Sprouted Ancient Grain Flakes now.

not-so-pitch-perfect

Upon my return from my mission in Nauvoo in August, a friend and I decided on a new life motto: For the Adventure, for the Story. Ben and I agreed that if we were ever in a position to do something maybe a little out of the norm, we would seize the opportunity to have an adventure, or at least have an interesting story out of it.

Fast forward about a month. I was sitting on a full plane, and it had just been announced that we will have to wait on the landing strip for another hour until we get the clear to take off.  You can imagine everyone’s joy in hearing that news.

I hadn’t eaten all day, and my stomach was audibly rumbling. Trying to be as positive as possible to the steward, I asked for a cookie, or a cracker, or some pretzels, whatever they had. I could tell the man was frustrated, not everyone was trying as consciously as I to be kind. (The poor guy, it wasn’t his fault the plane was delayed. He was just the only person nearby on which the passengers could direct their anger). He told me he’d get me a cookie.

20 minutes later, I flagged him down—cheerfully and politely of course—and asked again, “I’m really sorry. I’m not upset, I’m just a little bit starving. Could you grab that cookie for me?”

“Sure”

Then he disappeared again.

“He’s probably not coming back with a cookie, is he?” I asked the nice couple sitting next to me.

“Nope” We all chuckled despairingly.

“So” I began, as is my custom on airplanes, “Are you going home, leaving home, or neither?”

We got to chatting. They asked me about my performance mission, and about my new singing group, and somehow my random vision of a musical flash mob on an airplane came up. 

The older woman said, “All those musically things, you must be great! OOO! Honey! You’ve gotta sing for us! For the plane!”

I laughed, “You’re too sweet. I’m not really.” She was cute.

But then I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

Big bucket list check-off… when would I ever have a captive audience wherein anybreak from staring at the back of an unmoving seat would be welcome? The more I pushed the thought away the more it stood festering, growing until I couldn’t let it go. It’d be a great story, Ben.

I got up, the music to my vocal jazz group's arrangement of  “In My Life” by the Beatles in my hand. A song we had just barely started learning. (How silly would it have been for me to sing a song I actually knew? no. that would be ridiculous.)

“Hey everyone…” I looked back at the row I just crawled out of as they gave me two big smiles and thumbs ups, “I…uh… I have to have this song memorized before tomorrow for this group I’m in…” Every single eye was glued on this bizarre behavior of a girl standing in the isle, “Since we’ve all got nothing better to do, I was wondering if I could sing it for you?”

Immediately, what seemed like hundreds of phones were pointed in my direction, video recording mode on. I got a few encouraging nods and so I took a deep breath. For the story.

I lifted the music while the sheet had a seizure because my hands were shaking so much.

I started singing. About half way through the first verse, I realized this had been a very bad idea. What was coming from my mouth sounded a little off. That is because I learned the alto part of a jazz arrangement. So what I was singing didn’t even remotely sound like the original Beatles tune.

But it was too late. I couldn’t stop now. I just prayed that the sound was getting lost in the rafters of the plane. But I definitely saw some confused looks that said, “I think I’ve heard these lyrics before… but that sounds like a bunch of random notes”

When I finished the botched up rendition, there was polite but pitiful round of applause. I heard one “whoop!” then everyone turned back to his or her various devices. Probably sending the video to a friend with the caption: “look at this crazy lady on my plane!”

The darling couple welcomed me back to our row and said, "Oh you're so brave!"

Immediately after I sat down, the steward came rushing up the isle, handed me a cookie and with both awe and sympathy said, "You earned this."

Meeting the New Boss

This weekend I went to visit my brother in the beautiful city of Seattle. 

I had recently received an internship offer from a Seattle-based company, and I set up a time to meet some of the employees while I was in town.  Straight from the airport, I started toward the address that was given to me. One suitcase bouncing along the stones in one hand, and my backpack bouncing up and down, following the directions my phone gave me, I climbed up a ginormous hill to what was our determined meeting spot: 

Columbia Tower. 

I looked up in awe. My instructions said to go to the 75th floor. How many buildings have you been in that have 75 floors?   (I had to take 3 separate elevators.)

I hobbled into the front lobby, bedraggled from the flight, train, and hike. Wearing my trusty sneakers, jeans, a 5-year-old zip up hoodie, my makeup smudged and my hair disheveled from sleeping on the plane, I kept getting glances that said "what is that crazy homeless lady doing with such a nice suitcase?"

I decided to freshen up a little before my meeting. 

I went into a really small stall; suitcase and backpack followed. With some serious squirming to avoid an unusually space-consuming toilet, and with truly expert contortionist skills, I changed my outfit, shoes and all. I walked out of the stall and observed my now acceptable business casual outfit in the mirror: a light beige shirt and a simple blue skirt. 

I ran my fingers through my hair, touched up some mascara, and was about to leave when I noticed a mark on my shirt. 

An inch-long blue pen streak, right on my chest. 

Here I was, on the way to meeting a potential future employer on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower, and there's a BLUE PEN MARK ON MY CHEST. 

I splashed some water on it, nothing happened so I added soap, which then added a large discolored circle surrounding that deplorable line of pen. 

I thought I'd make it better by making it worse: I tried to expand the discolored soap circle so it wasn't as noticeably concentrated.

As I leaned my torso awkwardly into the sink, and tried to scrub it out, a very friendly black woman stepped out of a stall and looked at me, appropriately questioning my stance. 

"I...uh...I got... there's pen on my shirt"

"Oh Honey! That's the worse" She said laughing as she walked out of the bathroom.

yes. it was the worst. 

It finally faded enough so that it wasn't so glaring an arrow to my bust. 

I made it up to the 75th floor eventually, the meeting went swimmingly well, and I got a glimpse of a pretty incredible view of the city.

While waiting for a friend thereafter at Starbucks, I bought a bright orange carrot juice.
I spilled it on my shirt.

Affordable Care Act: part-time employee kinks

Every citizen has access to quality health care—What a beautiful idea! Regardless of someone's income or situation, they have the same ability to receive quality health care.

I don't think anyone with half a heart would argue that people should NOT be allowed health care because of economic status. We're all on the same page as far as theoretical and moral benefits. 

We all agree it's a good idea in theory.

There are some really great advantages to this act:

Just a few include the fact that it Ends pre-existing condition exclusions. Huzzah! Everyone's happy about that, right?

And it Keeps young adults covered. I can stay on my parent's plan until I'm 26. That gives lots of young adults, like myself, the chance to get on their feet career-wise before having to pay for insurance.

It also Cuts costs for a lot of people who may otherwise not be able to afford health insurance (at least theoretically). 

And it Ensures that employers provide health benefits for their employees. 

There are so many controversial elements to this law that both positively and negatively affect many people, but in the employer clause is
Where I personally have seen the most direct effects and disadvantages:

In trying to implement this nice idea that every employee is covered, the employers are having a hard time finding the money to do so. Because they don't have to provide coverage for part-time employees, they are taking extra precautions to make sure part-time employees don’t work anywhere close to the full-time limit. So as a student employee on my campus, I can only work a MAXIMUM of 20 hours a week. I could have 3 different jobs, but combined I cannot work past 20 hours, or I will be fired from all three.

I’m not asking the university to cover my insurance. Quite frankly, I don’t really care right now if I have any (nor do most of my contemporaries), but I do care about my income—especially working only part-time—and the annoyance it is to be so restricted in my ability to work.

I’ve noticed many part-time faculty members are experiencing similar frustrations. They cannot even be in the building, working “off the clock,” or volunteering in any capacity on campus past X amount of hours a week. There’s another clause in the Affordable Care Act that says to go from full-time to part-time position, you must have a period of retirement. One of the head dance directors at my school had to cast and direct a show months in advance so that she could (begrudgingly) take the allotted time “in retirement.”

While the Affordable Care Act is a truly wonderful idea, I think the specificity of restrictions in practice has created some unforeseen disadvantages and unintentional, annoying consequences that should probably be addressed (if only to improve the current low approval rating of the act)

There’s a comprehensive plan that’ll be rolled out over four years, so maybe they’ll have ironed out some of these kinks by then…!

• If you are interested in reading the whole law click HERE

Ticket Booth Boy, or teebeesquared

There is this boy, Ticket Booth Boy. We shall refer to him as TBB.
Nay, teebeesquared.

Every girl in the theater/music department knew this boy. Whenever they lined up to buy tickets, they made sure to line up in front of his window for the chance to spend 4 glorious minutes with this darling cute boy.

About a year ago, I bought a ticket for a classical choir concert from this young man at the booth.

He asked, "just one? you're not bringing a date?"
"Nope." smile charmingly, "It's just me."
chit chat. he mentions he did choir in high school.
Me: "So are you going to go to the concert?"
Teebeesquared: "Well, I'm tempted to buy a seat next to yours"

Man, what a line. is he smooth or what?

"But unfortunately, I can't make it to the show tomorrow night"
"oh bummer." truly. "next time"

The following evening, imagine my surprise when I looked up from my program and he was shuffling down my row to come sit next to me!

How completely, adorably romantic. My face flushed with excitement at his sweet gesture--he had actually bought the ticket next to mine!

In the next few minutes before the concert began, we proceeded to discover that we had pretty much nothing in common, and couldn't fill up the space of ten minutes with remotely interesting conversation.


For the next few weeks I gawked and gossiped and giddily told my girlfriends what had happened, and they cooed with jealously, as was expected when I strategically left the gloriously awkward ending out of the retelling.

Every once in a while I'll still see him at the booth. I've done a pretty good job of avoiding his booth when purchasing tickets. Here and there, we'll share a head nod. The other day, he even said my name--correctly too! I wonder if he remembers where he learned it.