Engaged

Three years ago, Tom Woodbury asked me on a date.

Here I am with Lana an hour or two before Tom picked me up on April 30, 2010.

Then...

after jumping out of an airplane,

sharing in our nerdly love,

(yep)

attending family reunions together (a sign of true love),

surviving sleep deprivation (the only possible explanation for this photo),

and going to super classy parties with super classy friends...

He proposed.

And I said yes.

(I love you shmoops and I can't wait to marry you.)

lately

My hair is growing!

Tom is anti-paparazzi.

I've been experimenting with red lipstick.

Portrait of a college student. (that's West Wing playing on my laptop)

I have the best boyfriend of all the boyfriends.

Charles.

Homesick

I feel homesick. I've lived in Utah for a long while now. My family is here now so I rarely get to go back to what I will always consider my home. Arizona is where I grew up. I went from playing with troll dolls to driving on highways while I lived there. It's my place of birth. I miss the cacti and the wide-open space. I miss the fiery sunsets. The nights where the heat clings to the rocks even after the air has cooled off. Swimming pools and concrete, concrete, concrete. The feeling of warm pool water and the pavement's fever radiating heat through your sandals. Shaved ice on the worst, most sweltering days. The tingle on your cheeks when you go from an air conditioned building out into the blinding, white heat of an Arizona summer. Prickly plants that you look at but never, under any circumstances, touch. Bougainvillea like bright lipstick kisses. The way the sky turns from blue to silver in August. Late nights under orange streetlights, windows down, local bands on the radio. And staring up at the stars from the cold, damp grass of a golf-course.

Arizona, I miss you.

In no particular order, I give you "Arizona" according to my memories (or at least according to the photos I have on this computer):

I hereby call this blog back into session.

K. Sorry for the extended absence. The plan was to start a new blog and that just never happened. Mostly because this is my blog, y'know? I've been writing under this title and at this address for so long. I had all these weird ideas about starting a new blog and getting a "fresh start." But really... life isn't really split into neat chapters, is it? So here we are. I'm back.

Lemme get you caught up to things in a few sentences:
- THIS IS MY LAST SEMESTER AT BYU. Whoooo.
- All kinds of funny, wishy-washy, winds-a-changin' feelings have been blowing through my life.
- Speaking of winds... Utah is far too cold for my liking. taste. wellbeing. Yikes.

More details later. But basically, hello old friend (meaning my blog). And hello all you dear friends (that's you, if you're reading this).

a quick list of things i find comforting

• the sound of the dishwasher in the evening
• clean sheets
• the smell of brownies baking
• an organized bedroom
• lamplight (as opposed to overhead lighting)
• an up-to-date To Do list
• a fully stocked fridge
• little reminders that people love me (notes, letters, pictures, hellos)

Something about today:
This evening I found out that an old friend of mine passed away. He was in a car crash last Sunday while traveling between cities on the Warped Tour.
I hadn't seen him in a few years. He and I went to junior high and high school together. We were on student council together, we were in lots of the same clubs, and in lots of the same classes. I had not talked to him since we graduated from Red Mountain apart from an occasional "hello, how are things". It feels strange that he's gone now.
Aren't friends like him supposed to be constant (though distant) figures in your life? Those friends from high school that are just there. The ones you expect you'll run into at a grocery store or at a high school reunion, but that you don't feel any need to seek out. I'm sad that he's gone. People our age shouldn't be going anywhere. It scares me to think that a life can end so suddenly.
Zach was a really great guy and a very talented musician. I know he'll be missed by a lot of people.

Back to blogging

K, sorry. I missed a week in there. Things have been busy.

Coming soon:

• family reunion
• Spiral Jetty
• An Ode to Summer

Skydive Canyonlands, or how I briefly reached nirvana at 10,000 feet

Months ago, Living Social had this really crazy deal on skydiving. Instead of the usual $200+ dollars, it was just 80. Skydiving had always seemed like this crazy, extravagant, extreme sort of activity. While it seemed appealing, it also seemed too impractical. In a financial sense. And let's be serious, jumping out of an airplane for fun is the very definition of impractical.

Anyway, with such an awesome deal it seemed silly to pass up the chance to go skydiving. It was one of those "this price only if you buy X amount of passes" deals, so our friends Lina and Taylor, Tom and myself each got a pass to go.

The deal was for a place down in Moab, UT called Skydive Canyonlands. We needed to use the passes by mid-June. We bought them way back in January (I think, sometime around then) and figured we'd go when the weather got nicer. Every couple of weeks I would remember that I was going skydiving and start to freak out a little so I just pushed it out of my mind the best I could. Finally, June rolled around and we either had to go or let our passes expire. Taylor made an appointment for a Thursday morning and that's when it finally started to feel real.

On the morning of our jump, we left Provo at the crack of dawn to get down to Moab for our 9 AM appointment. Actually, no, not even the crack of dawn... it was still dark and I was not a happy camper. (Sorry, guys.) I was too tired during our drive down to consider being afraid. But as the sun came up and I became a little more coherent, I decided I needed a plan. See, I'm terrified of heights. Severely. Like, clinging to tree branches and rocks anytime a hiking trail gets too steep. In order to combat this, I did my best to clear my mind, let things be, and to just take things as they came.

The rest of the drive I didn't think about skydiving, I thought about being in a car. How nice! Hanging out with friends in the car, watching the sun rise... yep. Car rides are easy.

Then it was, "How lovely! Relaxing in an airplane hanger."

Creative skydivers.

Tom the Handsome, chilling out as he waits his turn to go up

After a while, we watched this video. It explained the waivers we were signing. Short version: in the event of serious injury, you waive the right to sue our company. In the event of your death, you instruct your heirs not to sue our company. 

But did this freak me out? Nope! Because I was living in the moment. 

Well, that or because I was so
transfixed by this guy's beard to feel any fear.

Following the video, we waited (for a really, really long time) until it was our turn. 

We got suited up and I thought, "What a neat thing. Putting on a jumpsuit! Never done THIS before."

I revelled in the feeling of a jumpsuit, swished around a little... all the while being very careful not to think of anything else.

What could have been our last photo.
I mean - what? Uh.. Look how excited we are!

Anyway, then it was finally our turn to go up. A flight in a small aircraft! I'd never been up in a little plane like that before. At this point, it was really easy to forget about everything else. I didn't even have to try anymore. I wasn't thinking about jumping out of the plane, I was thinking about how beautiful the world is and how lucky I was to have such an awesome view.

Lina took her camera up with her,
so the aerial shots are from her flight.

The huge rock formations flatted out as we got higher.

Eventually it looked almost entirely flat below us.

When it was time to jump, I was actually a little sad that the flight was ending. It was beautiful. But jump I did.

I was the first out of the plane. My instructor gave me some last minute instructions on where to put my hands and the right position to hold my body. I put my feet out of the plane and steadied them on the landing gear. Once my instructor got his feet out too, I grabbed onto the front straps of my harness and then - we jumped.

The free-fall was amazing. That's the word that kept coming into my head. Amazing, amazing, amazing.  

The ground is so far off that it doesn't seem like it is rushing toward you. Instead, it looks stationary. Like a really distant mountain range on a road trip. It doesn't seem like it's getting any closer and then suddenly it looms in front of you.

When the chute opened, we slowed way down (though it still felt like we were going pretty fast). I settled back into my harness and then my instructor had me take the handles to the parachute. He showed me how to steer by pulling down on one side of the parachute or the other.

The landing was really, really smooth. I pulled my legs up in front of me and slid to a gentle stop in the dirt.

Tom and I immediately after landing.

I was surprised to realize that at no point during the entire experience did I ever feel fear. I was too focused on each part of it to worry about being scared. Even though skydiving is usually described as an "extreme" sport, I had a totally different experience. The entire thing felt pretty peaceful. Not exactly what I expected, but I absolutely loved it.

Two happy skydivers.