Falling Action

In literature, after the climax of the story, there's only falling action left to resolve the story.

That is what I have left to look forward to for the next few weeks.

If you know me, happen to be in the neighborhood, and read this, help me make the last two weeks interesting. Would you?

I now have only Christmas to work toward, to wake me up in the morning. It should be enough, it was enough to get me out of bed all year for the first seven or eight years of my life. Plus this year, I don't have to start a highly intimidating and stressful job the day after I get home.

So, lets reflect on the past two weeks.


Well first of all, my lovely and dear sister, Ellie, hopped a plane to visit. Oh, how I love that kid. She is easily one of my favorite people of all time. She made my week for those few days she visited and I hope she'll consider seeing me again out here. I hope she enjoyed herself.

As all my friends now know, she's the coolest 17 year-old you'll ever meet.

The Duddings know how to make cool kids - it's a fact.

She came in late on Wednesday night, (more like very early Thursday morning) and stayed until we drove her to the airport on Sunday. In the days in between, she went to a few classes with me, toured Rexburg, and met my exceptional friends. Ellie - you're another reason why I can't wait for Christmas.

Once she was left in Salt Lake, the wagon went onward.

To Denver.

And as the fates smiled upon me, I spent the week with a few of the choicest people you can find.

Namely ...

Taylor

TamiBlaine

I pretty much just wanted a reason to put those cool pictures up.

The Weaver family opened their home to Tami and I for the week while we ventured through the city. We were both warmly welcomed. I am sincerely grateful for everything they did and had planned for us - they are truly spectacular people. They made me feel part of the family for Thanksgiving - something I will and have missed out on for a while.


Taylor comes from a good stock. The pictures above are from our day at the Denver Zoo -one of the many larks we fell into during the week. It was exquisite. Among other things, we went to this bookstore that could have been a shrine to the written word, saw Quantum of Solace after an evening of homemade pizza and ice cream, visited the zoo, bowled in the hippest venue available, and dressed up and went to a Nuggets game. We also visited Blaine's house and family. He too comes from a very good stock.

All in all, the trip was exactly what I needed and wanted. Sublime. I wish I was still in Denver. I had high expectations for the trip, I admit, but Denver met them effortlessly.

Good thing I plan on going back someday. There was so much we still need to do.

I know it will, (it always does) but Christmas and the surrounding winter break, you have a lot to live up to.

Until then, we must endure to the end, right?

The Iceburg Cometh ...

Evening now comes to Rexburg at 5:12 pm.

If the physical manifestation of paranormal activity is a drop in temperature, the fattest ghost on Earth has sat on Rexburg. Excuse me, correction, the second fattest ghost has sat on Rexburg. I am confident that the fattest ghost on Earth is sitting on Russia, and leaning back particularly in Siberia. There is no ghost chilling in/on Alaska. That's just a geographically cold place.

Never mind that it is November.

Normally, combating the elements is a natural instinct - a simple element of survival, but of late, I find myself losing the struggle. Darwin's natural selection has its eye on me. That is, until I find my coat.

MISPLACED AND FOUND:
MISPLACED - One extremely attractive charcoal wool peacoat. Size L, purchased from Ross. Comes to the name "Sunday Coat". Owner deeply worried about its well-being. Owner also very cold.

I refuse to call it lost.

UPDATE: LONG LOST COAT REUNITED WITH OWNER

I found my coat today. I swallowed my pride and ended up in the lost and found. I asked them if they had a charcoal pea coat with really very little hope that they would actually find one and then lo and behold, it stumbled out in a line up of three other coats. It looked at me like, "That took you long enough," and then jumped into and then on to my arms. Sweet reunion.

Moving away from the weather...

I don't know about you, but for me, the next few weeks will be building to the climax of the season. Until Christmas.

To begin, my dear and only sister, Ellie, will be journeying across the far stretches of the Midwest and west to find me in Idaho. I am so excited to see her. I have reiterated this on numerous occasions, but it continues to hold truth. I miss her. She will be arriving at midnight after having traveled most of the day ... a familiar feeling. I am only grateful she doesn't have to travel by Wells Fargo wagon or something.

She leaves the Sunday following her arrival. Luckily for her (and me), her exit coincides with my own exit from school work, from headaches, and from the rotund apparition plaguing Rexburg.

Yes, goodbye Rexburg, hello Denver.

I will be spending somewhere around 6 days in the mountains with some of my favorite people ... a couple Colorado boys and a fine lady of Washington. Denver, an oft-noted city in easily my most favorite novel, On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, has over time assumed setting of my day-dreams, the place that has personified the west, the locale of subconscious.

Don't ask me why, I can't answer that.

Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched. (Yikes! What to wear?!)

Until then, I find new ways to evade homework.

7 days to the coming of Ellie ...
11 days to Denver ...

And really, I'm suppose to sleep with all that? Even if the weather was decent!?

The Beginning

It is 1:59 Am.

I have found my self, once again, staring in front of the daunting and taunting blank screen of my blog.

I hate the very idea of blogs. But - this said, I do read them.

I need to have something to document the whims of my youth. The very word "blog", I think, captures the momentary and insubstantial spirit of the words my generation uses. It's short. It's a little superficial. And it also sounds like the sound I make when I think about "blogging."

Blog.

Mostly, something around the feeling of self-consciousness is what makes me hesitate about writing in something like this. This, folks, is me getting over that.

Eitherway, I have no idea how to start this train.

The weather?

If Idaho was a person, they'd probably be diagnosed as imbalanced. Perhaps, bipolar even. Today, it rained hard enough for us to raise our voices in church to be heard. And we all know that no one raises their voice in church - or should anyway. The day before, it was windy. Which, for my Ohio readers, is not how we know wind. We have trees and small hills and buildings and people to slow down wind. We feel the wind in Ohio like the kid in the back seat feels the air-conditioner on the way back from a softball game. Idaho has flat open land that lets the cool air travel swiftly and unhindered. And when it gets some mountain momentum, and knocks the accessories off of people. The week before? It was paradise. Weather that August would have been proud to claim. It's only a matter of time before snow.

Well this is my first try at this. I'll get better.