Dancing

There are certain politics to life that you learn as you grow up. People politics. You don't really realize when you're little how much they are a part of life. Take family relationships, for instance. Who you invite to a family event may not just depend on what type of relation it is. It also could depend on whether they invited you to the last event, sent a card or didn't send a card, saw you in a store and made an effort talk or ran away instead, and the list could get more and more detailed. And then you can't really invite an aunt without inviting her kids, unless her kids did something to obviously snub you at a past event, in which case everyone would know why they weren't invited... It's all just very confusing. Our family's not even that complicated and we run into these politics.

It's almost like a dance. You have to learn the correct way to react and handle certain situations--because there is a correct way. One wrong step in the 'dance' and you might upset the cycle and cause the politics to start, even though it was an accident.

Snow

The snow is amazing. As much as it makes travel difficult...and walking, it can look amazing outside. I had to drive home the night it was really snowing bad and when I turned to go down a side street there was a huge branch that had fallen and was spanning the road. I felt like I was in a movie for some reason. Nothing else exciting happened while I reversed back out of the road, though.

Tonight

Tonight I have nothing planned, and that is very exciting. It's times like these when I think I'll finally catch up on everything--homework, cleaning, movies. It usually turns out to be a movie and then that takes up most of my night, but I'll at least attempt to work while I watch. Tonight, though, I definitely need to clean. My room is always a mess. I can keep other areas of the apartment clean, but for some reason my room has never been able to stay clean. I like to call it Creative Chaos because then at least it sounds positive. There's a certain cycle to it. Every few months I'll get really motivated and clean it from top to bottom, and then gradually it creeps back into chaos. Rinse and repeat. One would think that if you just put everything back from where you got it, it would never get dirty. I must not be doing that.

Aches, Pains & Fate

Yes well broomball was amazing, but I am paying for it today. I didn't even know I had some of the muscles that are hurting. This has really made me realize I need to work out more. It used to be better when I lived on campus because my whole floor would go to pilates or cardio together at the Bell Center, but now I have to rely on my own motivation to go by myself. That is clearly much more difficult for me.

Have you ever thought about fate? I've been having this discussion with my roommate lately. Some people believe that you control your fate. I think I used to agree with that, but I've been changing my mind. I mean, you can want something really bad and do everything you can to get it, and still not get it. So all the choices you make would be toward your goal, but ultimately you don't decide whether those choices will really make it happen. There always seems to be some element that comes in outside of our control. So maybe all we can really do is move in the direction we want and see what happens. I think the hardest part about accepting that theory is the fact that we can never have complete control over our lives. It means there will always be a deciding factor we don't know about, so all we can do is plan according to what we do know.

Broomball

I've realized that since I started writing this blog, I'm actually writing more in my journal.

Anyway, today I was in a broomball tournament, which was amazing. It is a hilarious game because the harder and more intense you play, the more you fall all over the place. They actually have special broomball shoes that you can buy. I can't believe such a non-major sport actually has specific shoes. Two of my teammates had them and they looked like moon shoes. I loved the team names, too. Ours was kind of boring, "Lexicon Ice," but some of the other teams we played against had names like "The Concussioners," "Team Shadiness," "THWACK," etc. Everyone got really into it. It was for Des Moines area businesses, so I expected to play professionals. Well, the first team we played was so drunk the goalie just layed on the ice and kept throwing the ball in the wrong direction. It actually became one of her teammate's job to yell at her before she threw the ball so she wouldn't mess up. And the games started at 12:30pm! At least it was the whole team I guess, and not just one player. I'd be a little embarrassed to show up on Monday.

Apparently there is a blizzard or some sort of winter storm headed for Des Moines between now and Tuesday. I think it would be great if we got a huge snow storm, but I'm only expecting ice. It seems like that's all Des Moines gets. Last year, I freaked a passenger in my car out because even though I'd started braking very early, the car started sliding through a stop sign on 31st. I tried driving up against the curb to slow it down, so we managed to spin the car into a turn going onto 31st. Thankfully there were no cars coming--only one guy in a car waiting to turn onto the street we just slid down, and he looked terrified.

Da Colts

Well the Super Bowl is over. I usually watch it for the ads, but this year proved the opposite. The game was the most exciting part and the ads were a terrible let-down. First, I must say it's wonderful to see the Bears lose. All season I have been wishing they'd lose whatever luck they had, but it turns out this is even better--They had the opportunity to win the Super Bowl and didn't. Too many crazy Bears fans have turned me off, so they're right next to the Green Bay Packers on my list. (I'm a Vikings fan.) And yes, I know the Vikings haven't had the best season(s), but what kind of fan would I be if I was only fair-weather?

But anyway, on to the Super Bowl ads. I thought they were a huge let-down. The majority seemed like they were about television shows and a few beer commercials. Last year, I had to write down my favorite one for an ad class I was in, and I had so many written down it was difficult to pick which was best. This year I could hardly find one. And I thought there was supposed to be a proposal during the Super Bowl as well. Did anyone else hear that? It really surprises me that more companies didn't take advantage of Super Bowl airtime. I didn't see Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Coors, Geico, and others.

This is a picture of, well myself, and my brother's cat Leonard. (Or as he likes to spell it, Lynyrd.) You wouldn't believe how skinny Leonard used to be. His head used to look like a triangle as a kitten, but he had enormous paws, so we always expected a growth spurt. Just not sideways. Lately he looks like he'll burst if he runs into anything sharp.

I truly enjoy cats. They are so different than a dog. When a cat is loyal, that's when you know you have a true friend. Usually they like their space. We've had quite a few cats throughout my life, whether we kept them long or not. If it was up to me, we would've kept all of them. Let's see, it started with Buttons, then Murphy, Bitsy, Cookie, Montana Max, Smokey Joe, Sam, Cheeto, and finally Gidget.