Step 14: The Ocean Rules

we sailed a rocky ocean
in a rickety old ship
with one tattered sail
we tossed my dreams out to sea
because they'd do the fish
more good than me

Step 13: Just Say Ew

While stopped at a stop light, a man on a motorcycle next to me decided he needed to take his shirt off and tie it to his handle bars. What is it that makes men think that it's okay to just walk around (or drive around) with no shirt on? Unless you are at the pool or doing some sort of athletic activity, you have to keep your shirt on. It is not that hot out, and you are not that ripped.

Step 12: Give Everyone Wedgies

I can't help it. When I see that bit of underwear sticking out of someone's jeans, I have to pull it. It's as if my brain is flashing an enormous sign saying "pull here," and the sign won't stop flashing until I have pulled that person's underwear up into their butt cheeks. I know, I Should grow up. But wedgies will forever be one of the best things ever.

Recap: In order to be more like me, give everyone wedgies.

Step 11: Love Billy Joel Despite the Fact that He's an Asshole

It's

Still
Rock and Roll

To
Me.

Step 10: Obsess Over Carol Ann Duffy

(this is her. no one knows if she is a man or a woman or an elf.)

Carol Ann Duffy is a poetic genius, and I want to do her. Bad. Here is a poem that I recently fell in love with by her. Read it. Love it.

The Lovers

Pity the lovers,
who climb to the high room,
where the bed,
and the gentle lamps wait,
and disembark from their lives.
The deep waves of the night
lap at the window.

Time slips away
like land from a ship.
The moon, their own death,
follows them, cold,
cold in their blankets.
Pity the lovers, homeless,
with no country to sail to.


Carol Ann Duffy

Step 9: Write Things with Strong Lesbian Themes

because everyone loves lesbians.

Thick empty air

gently licking her moist skin.

From the window,

she sees the hot masses swarm by.

The stale air reaches

out for her, pushes, guides her

towards the oak door,

into the red, white, and blue throng.

The amoeba engulfs her-

instant acceptance into the patriotic bliss.

Distant music drifts in her ears,

the scene's noises muffled, and far away.

She sidles up to a woman

with a scarlet mark between her brows.

The woman's brown skin a magnet

to her own milky, sour flesh.

They brush wrists:

an intimate exchange of sweat.

She slides her pinkie

down the hot brown fleshy arm.

The woman notices.

She speeds ahead without looking

at the pale, lifeless hand that violated

her exotic sweat ridden body.

And the fireworks start before

they'd made their way to the park.

Step 8: Jennifer's Butthole

There is a movie coming out called "Jennifer's Body" or something awful like that. If you want to be me you will call this movie Jennifer's Butthole and then say it all of the time. Try to fit the phrase Jennifer's Butthole into your conversation everywhere. This is an essential part of being me. So please don't mess this up.

Step 7: Love Supreme Burgers

After work, Natalie called me and wanted to get a snack with me. I went and picked her up and we headed to Burger Supreme for some supreme burgers.

We decided to order via the drive through because Natalie said she was afraid to go inside. Understandable. I drive up. We look at the menu. The man on the speaker comes on and the conversation basically goes like this:

Speaker man: Order when you are ready.

Me: Not ready.

Natalie: Hamburger hamburger hamburger

Speaker man: Every night after 830 our hamburgers and cheesburgers are 1/2 off.

Me: Is that because they are old?

Pause...

Speaker man: No. It is because there are colleges all around us. UVU. BYU. and the students will come if it is 1/2 off.

Me: I will come.

then natalie and I laugh because we are in fourth grade and someone saying I will come is funny to us still. Especially when it involves an intercom.

Then we were maybe going to take the food back to Natalie's house and eat it. But I couldn't wait that long. So we ate in the parking lot in my car. It was a supreme burger.

Can We Take a Brief Pause in the Steps and Discuss Something?

Break from the steps number 1.

Sorry to have to post something that isn't a step to being me because I know that's what you are all looking for (and by all I mean Natalie and myself- the only people who read this). But here is my problem. I just don't think anyone is trying hard enough. I am putting all of this work into this blog to teach the world how to be me, a civilized human being, and people are just not listening. Today I said hello to a person in the hall at school because they were making eye contact with me the whole time they were walking. So, to try to make the situation less awkwar, I said hello when we passed each other. They said nothing. Zero. Kept walking. You can't just stare at me and then snub me. It doesn't work that way!

Also, tonight at work someone grabbed my arm. Yep. You read me right. Grabbed. I came over with a tray to box up this man's food and he grabbed my arm as I went to box his food and said loudly that he wanted to do it. It was odd. And it freaked me out big time. I told the man that I didn't think he was allowed to touch me, but he ignored that. And just shoveled his fried rice into his take out box.

The point is: Is anyone reading this? Earth to earth! Read my blog and learn a thing or two. The world would be better off if everyone could act like me and not snub people they are staring at or grab people's arms who are trying to help them. I need people to try a little harder. I need people to make more of an effort to be me. I'm just not seeing the effort.

Step 6: Lie Always

I didn't feel like going to class last night or this morning, so I didn't. But rather than just not go and ask someone else what happened in the class, I feel the need to email my professors with extravagant lies. These lies include but are not limited to: non-stop vomit, death of a family member, sister was arrested, I was in involved in a car accident, etc.

Yesterday, I missed class and told my professors I was sick. And my lie was so convincing, that I even convinced myself I was sick. And now I am either such a slave to my lies that I force myself to make them become truths or I just happened to get sick. But I am going to go with the former, the slave option.

In short: lie.

Step 5: Hate Nancy

Nancy is a young, peppy, blond with bad skin who goes to BYU that I work with. She believes that making out with someone means that you hug them for an extending period of time. She is lazy and too incompetent to complete even the simplest tasks. Nancy has not been fired yet because her uncle is my boss's boss. Otherwise, she would have been fired after her first day. If I am subjected to even one more shift with Nancy, I am going to gouge my eyes out.

Step 4: Everything Beautiful is Evil

Step four to being me is finding everything that would normally be beautiful to be evil. To be a killer.

I saw the sun evaporate.
It slid down slow
and dissolved behind the mountains,
red to orange
to pink to
nothing.

The lake lapped at the mountain,
stroked it with its cool breath,
pleaded with the mountain
to go easy on the sun.

But the sky pushed down hard.
Any baby blue mercy it had
dissipated into dark,
evil force.

And the mountain devoured
while the lake begged
and sky pushed
red to orange
to pink to
nothing.

Step 3: Lack Basic Math Skills

Last night I fell asleep really early. Like 8 pm early. Naturally, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. I decided to send some email that I had been putting off.

However, Google, the clever little demons they are, has put in place their new "drunk email" proctection. I heard about this a little while ago and I thought, "great." It seems like a good idea. But I was wrong. Because I was sober and trying to send emails in the middle of the night that were not booty calls and did not need the drunk email protection, but I had to go through the process anyways.

I was given several math problems to complete in order to be allowed to send my email. Which was crap. I have never been good at math. It's not my thing. So, I failed the test. TWICE. I hope Google is happy with this new software because it is not only protecting drunks from their email but also helpless girls who lack basic math skills.

Screw you Google.

Step 2:

Second step to being me is loving the Babe Rainbow. In fact, worshipping the Babe Rainbow. This painting is by Peter Blake and it's the best thing that ever happened to me or the world. Thank you Peter Blake whoever you are and wherever you are.

I first came across this lovely little painting in the post card form. I have been saving it for a few years now, waiting for the perfect person to send it to, but I guess I don't know anyone that cool yet. Or I am just too obsessed with it.

Babe Rainbow.

Step 1:

First thing you need to know in order to be me is how to have the worst possible luck out of anyone on the planet.

About two weeks ago, my car broke down. I know, I know, it happens to everyone. Not so unlucky you may say, but that's where you are wrong. Don't judge me so quickly. I know bad luck, and I have it. See, I was driving home from work and on the phone with my mom (most likely asking her for cash because I seem to always run out of this). Everything was fine and I was almost home. I was turning right onto my road when my steering wheel stops working. Yep. Stopped working. It was everything I could do to get the car to the side of the road.

I am of course yelling things into the phone at this point. The car is stopped, and it turned itself off. Finally, I regain control and begin to talk to my mother again when my phone begins to screech at me and ends my call. Hmm, thanks for hanging up mom. I try to call her back, but none of the buttons on my phone will work. The phone was broken. Yep, at the same time as my car.

Clearly, I am sure this is a terrorist attack at this point. I have A LOT of enemies so I knew it was one of them trying to kill me. Naturally, I feared for my life and did not want to exit my car. Which was a problem for me since I had not phone. After a half hour of crying and hoping someone I knew would see me and stop, I got out and went into the gas station I had stopped near.

Me: Can I use your phone? My car is broken infront of your store.
Gas Station Lady: (glares at the phone in my hand)
Me: It's broken. I know. Crazy, right? My car AND my phone broke.
Gas Station Lady: Here. (Shoves a phone at me that is covered in AIDS) You can only make local calls.
Me: WHAT?
Gas Station Lady: Only. Local. Calls.

Okay. I was really in trouble. I only knew one local number by heart: my ex-boyfriend's and he had just told me he "never wanted to see gross face again" the night before. So, he wasn't a good option, but my only option. So I called and he didn't pick up, surprise, surprise.

So, with my car still sitting on the road with the flashers on, I sprinted to my sister's apartment which was not too far, but far enough that it was hard to run there. She let me borrow her phone and I finally called someone to two me.

The next day I got the car fixed and it cost $1500. Basically my entire year's salary considering I am a waitress who tries to give all of my shifts away because I would rather live in squander than work.

Then, last night, there was a downpour in Utah. Crazy. It's the desert here. It never rains. Well, I was down on the west side of Utah Lake writing poetry and watching the clouds when the rain begins to fall. It's getting dark anyways, so I pack up, and head home. It got dark pretty damn fast, and I got lost pretty damn fast. Then the rain really started coming down. Lost. Rain. Dark. Are you picturing this? Of course the tears are coming, not in full drops, but they are burning the sides of my eyeballs.

Just when a person would think that things couldn't get worse, my driver side windshield wiper blade broke. It decided to swing all the way to the left, off of the windshield, and wipe the rain over there, in the air. So, I stopped the car and pushed it down, and it popped back up again. I had to drive while leaning over into the passenger's seat because only that wiper would work. I had to drive home on the highway like this. I almost died about 40 times.

So to recap here, if you want to be me, which you do of course, have bad luck. Have the worst luck. Ever.