Personality Types

People get famous in so many ways. I don't know who Myers or Briggs are, but I can tell you that I'm an ENTJ. Extrovert, iNtuitive, Thinker, Judger - important to my identity and understanding of Self.

Our team at work undertook a full personality analysis in April as a team-building exercise to know how each of us work. Surprisingly enough, it taught all staff that I. Need. Communication. 

We all want something that tells us more about why we do what we do and what we can expect in our interactions with other humans. People are messed up, so if we can fabricate something to help us better understand the world, human nature requires us to categorize and understand it.

I've categorized myself by a couple of systems, but there's no reason not to make millions on the process to help others better understand their own quirks. I think we have a great opportunity on our hands to take the simplest aspects of human nature and help our fellow Americans know themselves better, deeper, to the core of their selves.

Hear me out on this one.

When you walk into a public restroom, I assume you feel a draw towards a certain inclination to a geographic segment of a line of stalls. A few things will throw you off (I'll let your imagination take off here, though I hope none of you are eating), but that generally you are undeterred. Something deep in your subconscious pushes you, nay draws you to a certain half-open door, a selection that I can't help but think tells us something about you.

First stall in the room? Middle stall in a section? Handicap stall? They all tell us something about you. Yes, YOU. You are a person and you have a meaning and purpose and underneath all that meaning and purpose, I can dissect your psyche with which throne you choose. 

Stay tuned, you just might hear my name on the Today Show...

Years, Lovers, and Glasses of Wine

These are things that should never be counted.

I heard this recently, at the most opportune time in my life. After surviving seven weddings in 2015 and my something-after-25th birthday, I feel qualified to say that at this age the challenges are proving to be far from what I expected of my 20s.

I woke up one training day in May with a strong and serious pain in my right hip. I've since ran a marathon through it, and tried to continue to run, finding excruciating tightness throughout the summer and into the fall, 5 months later.

I had my receding gums grafted in August.

I again found myself with the common tinea versicolor skin fungus from heat/humidity/sweating across my chest, just ahead of a strapless bridesmaid obligation. Common, but this has been an adult problem for me.

I also recently found myself deciding a haircut plan based purely on the notion that "my hair is still young" and "soon I will have dry, nasty, old lady hair" - so I kept it long while I could.

I assumed that I was being carded every time I was at a bar/store because I lived in Utah, which is true and based on the liquor laws of this lovely state. But then I left the state. Many times. To Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, and Vermont. And I wasn't always carded.

My little sister just turned 24. I thought I was 22?? But she's younger than I am...? Still working out the plausibility of this one.

And this was the year I had three weddings and a bachelorette party in the month of August. I remember the years when August was only dedicated to my birth, and as a Leo that's fairly important.

I went to seven weddings this summer. In 2015 that's a sure sign of being in your "late-twenties" (which I am still calling my "mid-twenties" - at least until I am 29-and-a-half)

I have a year-round job and it's not teaching English in a foreign country... I even have health insurance that I pay for myself.

Half of my life ago I realized that boys were a thing, and I was a late bloomer.

The tragedy of realizing the next benefits of age come with retirement are setting in slowly, 6 years after the last age landmark.

The other two pieces of this great life motto I'm not going to speak to, though not for lack of content. By that I mean I have two words: Open Bar.

One final anecdote, hopefully to whet your long-overdue appetite for my mediocre writing: I woke up from wedding #5, on my best friend's bed, realizing I had managed to go to sleep without taking care of any pieces of my nighttime routine, purely throwing on a flannel top as sleepwear, and with a house full of other wedding guests. The brother of the bride saying, "you know what, guys? If any of us ever get married, my only recommendation is NO OPEN BAR".

I'll second that. While I'm not counting any of the numbers above, I am not sure I want to count past seven. Seven weddings in three countries and five states. Some bottles of wine, but also other varieties, too. But I'm not counting, just drinking a lot of water now.

Yeah, I Have a Problem

Once I admit it will you all leave me alone and just start dealing with your own condiment situations?

I know... I've been disgusted by the way some people eat before. Well, not really, but only because I am the strangest eater any of you have ever met.

An athlete recently, following a week in a shared condo, told a coworker that "Kelsey eats weird stuff" and I don't disagree! I'll be the first to admit that when your cooking plan centers around opening the fridge and taking out whatever you see to be put into a dish, you're generally not going to eat what most "normal" people eat.

But I do have a problem that goes beyond just normal strange eating (oxymoron, sure!)...

I have a mustard problem.

It used to be pretty basic. I like mustard on the things humans eat mustard on. Hot dogs, hamburgers, pretzels. 

Then I started using it as my only French fry dressing.

Then I started putting it into all cooked meals.

Then it all broke loose the first time I tried it on a salad instead of dressing.

And now my teams think I'm crazy. 

My coworker who is moving in this week told a group of friends at a birthday party recently "I can't tell if I like Kelsey or love her. I'd love her if she didn't have a dog or put mustard on EVERYTHING."

True, I do that.

Friends give me artsy little jars of dijon for Christmas gifts. Others gag at the thought of mustard on carrots.

But what are foods if they're not a condiment vehicle? And what would the condiment world be without mustard as the rock, nay the glue, that holds it all together?

Last weekend, the first day of 10 on the road for weddings in the Midwest, I was helping a friend finish some sweet potato fries. I loaded a fry up with some classic yellow mustard and BOOM: mustard all over my shirt AND my lap. Mustard and I may currently be on rocky ground, but I am on my way to a wedding BBQ ready to get back into the saddle, a week later and just three days from access to laundry again.

Bring it.

What Do I Really Do?

I've been catching up with old friends lately, all thanks to this epic Wedding Season I find myself a part of, and so many of them ask me what it is that I've been up to in this last whirlwind of a year. 

Sidenote: usually they first ask if I've married a Mormon or mention the many photos I've used as a facade to the true craziness of my life; there's nothing like a tranquil lake picture to throw the public off the scent of my true life, i.e. herding cats for a living.

Yes, I've traveled a fair amount and met some pretty incredible athletes and the support that surrounds them. I consider myself fortunate to be counted among that support network, even if there are days where I just feel my talents are being used to get anyone to give me an answer about anything. I've prided myself on communication before and where I am now I am THE communicator. 

I've also had opportunities to pick up new skills. In Mammoth in May, I was granted the great opportunity of being THE Airbag Master. No small feat, I was trained in the process as part of a general Airbag Team, promised that I along with at least two other coaches would have the great honor of keeping the bags at the bottom of the halfpipe full of air for the 5 hours training sessions each day. This means keeping velcro secured around the fans and using bamboo poles to push the sides up, ensuring air can enter the bag, but not too much air. That can be dangerous, too. 

After the first day it really meant just being yelled to from the top of the 'pipe, running circles around the two bags, and ultimately realizing I was the only person managing the proper and safe fill-age of the vinyl beasts. 

Beasts, I tell you. 

I woke up the third day with shoulder pain I haven't had since college swimming.

I realized by day four that my black jacket was the worst option for a dirt-covered behemoth of air. My light green pants were better-described as "grey" and my glove liners, hand washed daily, were crusty with the salt of the halfpipe.

It's no wonder that coaches avoid that duty, but lucky for them I don't know any better than to run laps around the airbags in ski boots, tying velcro tighter, opening air vents, closing air vents, holding bamboo sticks high over my head, and wondering why in the world I am the only person managing two bags, 8 vents, 8 fans, 8 corners, and the safety of some 35 athletes. 

Sucks to be awesome, I guess.

Classy San Pellegrino Fiasco

I have done us all a disservice by making this seem like a story in which my class and grace collide. In reality there was only a collision of grace with mediocrity as the San Pellegrinos I refer to were $0.60 bottles I found in the clearance hallway at the back of the store. Bottles I dug out of heaping shopping carts, out from under nearly expired Metamucil and off-brand taco seasoning. 

That doesn't mean I didn't painstakingly ring them up in the self check-out, making sure the attendant price corrected on the bottles that didn't ring in correctly. I even ran into one of our athletes at the checkout and we watched as another teammate ignored us waving and left with his sole purchase: toilet paper.

So when I stepped out the front doors of the best - and busiest - supermarket in town with one of those mini, double-decker carts and hit the curb flying high, it now comes as no surprise to me that I completely ate shit. Pardon my French, but I even flew over the handlebars of the little guy. Two bottles of San Pellegrino water met their demise and my other strange purchases (everyone knows I eat weird) rolled down the sidewalk. Everyone passing started crawling around on the ground, where I struggled to stand up without introducing my palms and knees to shards of green glass.

Luckily, though, the market employee told me I should go back in and replace them, because why not add even more insult to injury by allowing me to go dig through a clearance bin of water again while my hands bleed. 

Don't get me wrong: I definitely did go get two new bottles, but I also removed a shard of green glass on the drive home as I nibbled on the chocolate covered almonds I nabbed in the trays under the bulk section.

Class and grace right here.

Wedding Season's Here (and It's 10 Years Long)

I was 23 years old, the same age my parents were married. I was single, ready to mingle, and not even remotely considering settling for one human being to spend the rest of my life with. And I had one friend get married that year. Alright, I'll allow it.

The summer I was 24 I had three, but it almost didn't count because two of the celebrations were for teammates 2-3 years older than I. The other was for a close childhood friend who had been dating the guy for nine years. So it practically wasn't real; it was merely a fairy tale we all were fortunate enough to witness. They even just had a baby, and I don't mind, because they're perfect. He built her a house, for goodness' sake!

That three-wedding load wasn't even so bad and more like a warm-up because my 25th summer I had no weddings and took my waitress cash directly to the Argentine black money market for nine weeks of South American adventures. Thank goodness no one loved each other that year, I really benefited.

Now, though, I think those other events were merely a warm up for Full-On wedding season, or Wedding Season 2.0 or something. This ten-year event I feel deep in the throes of. Wedding Season is officially here.

The mid-to-late-twenties promise to be heavy in the marriage load, so much so that I almost wish I had a boyfriend in every state just so I could stop serving the role of "Token Single Friend" that everyone tries to set up with a cousin. It was fun for the first few, but my early twenties were also an era of self-discovery and adventure. Now my dreams lie in reading home decor books and painting my fingernails in the evening, only once I've carefully planned my food for the next day and already blended my breakfast smoothie.

This summer is about to hit me in the face: I return from work travel to the last remaining snowflakes of Oregon and am thrust violently and (hopefully) open-bar-ily into six weddings. The schedule is relentless, but almost tempts me with relaxation and rest:

July 18 straight to July 25.
Two weeks off.
August 8
A week for oral surgery err I mean a week "off" for soft foods (I plan microbrews and fro-yo).
August 22.
August 29.
September 5.

Yes, 6 weddings. My only office decorations anymore are little off-beige, pastel cardstock with the names of some pretty wonderful couples. Makes my picture of my dog that much more needed in my desk space. 

As a single female, six is way too many weddings, considering I can't blame a single one on friends of a significant other. 

So we've started a weekly event to start preparing ourselves for what proves to be a multi-year "Wedding Season": Wedding Wednesday. Matrimony Monday just seemed a little too aggressive coming off a lazy summer weekend, so we've stuck with Hump Day. Yesterday we put our rings on our left ring finger. Next week I'm thinking I might wear a garter under my gym shorts to work out. The next week I may simplify and just throw on some white. I can't be caught unprepared for this. I just might catch a bouquet this year... And marry rich to allow the tradition to hold truth. 

I've already purchased one dress, the $147.00 bridesmaid dress I've been promised is "classic" and "can be worn again!". Little do most brides realize in their delirium, David's Bridal does and always will look just like a bridesmaid dress.

Doesn't mean I won't be wearing it the next weekend to the wedding in Italy! They have no idea!

So let this be my official well-wishes to all of you finding yourselves wondering how you'll balance multiple weddings, who to spend what on, who to fly to, and who in the world is going to have an open bar. And please, ladies, unless you're really accomplished, don't even worry about wearing heels. Weddings were made for dancing. And cake. And neither of those can be accomplished as well in heels, as great as they may make your calves look.

Mormon Mommy Marathon

There's something to be said for the jeers of my peers (call me Dr. Seuss) as they joked that only white females run marathons. I obviously retorted that that just wasn't true - sinewy cross-country boys (who are a category all their own in society) and Kenyans do, too! Errr... OK fine, it's generally an upper-middle class female fad outside of those populations. 

Utah really takes that stereotype to the next level - imagine hearing a gun go off, slowly picking up pace and right around when you find your comfortable zone it begins: the Mormon Mommy banter.

Running behind a herd of women with thigh gaps is one thing, I just use that to my advantage to tell myself that I have more fuel stores for a race of this length. 

The next level was running next to two ladies that can't be older than 30 as they talked about their MANY children and then about how long they've been married. Twelve years... TWELVE?! You look my age! 12 years ago I was in high school, trying to prove to my friends that wet hair was cool and that swimming sweatshirts were really "in"!

The final straw was the conversation that I swear went on for five miles about the great party they had in which the highlight was the mango salsa... I mean, I love mango salsa, but I think the best mango salsa usually accompanies several other treats that just weren't mentioned.

So, around the Half mark, I started to lose it. My 7th grade track pants were so wet they were dragging behind me. I had heard there would be gels to eat at miles 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 and while I had seen them and failed to keep ahold of them in my icy fingers at mile 4, I was now 8 miles beyond that and starting to head for bonking. By the time the gels reappeared at 17 I was hangry. I popped into a port-a-potty to be out of the rain, downed a Clif Shot gel, and reemerged a new woman. The pacer for a 3:35 race had passed me during my break and I figured that was out of the question anyway for the next eight miles, so I just plugged on.

And I ran.

And ran.

And ran down the canyon. 

And it rained.

And poured.

And at mile 20 I realized I still felt strong. My inner mantra of "comfortable not complacent" resonated and I had stopped worrying about how wet I was. At mile 21 I started to smell bacon and yelled at the spectators with their tent of breakfast meats "It's not fair that you get to eat bacon and I don't!" to which they responded that I could have some! It was for me! But I was moving too fast.

So fast that I almost didn't see the friends that had come to watch me!

And I kept running. And building my speed. And feeling awesome. Taking everything a mile at a time, I realized I'd caught back up to the 3:35 pacer, then was stuck in his herd, then blew by them on a corner.

It was my race and at this point I knew I was ahead of the Boston qualifying standard. So I kept pushing it, scoffing at the volunteers giving dry towels at mile 25 and just trying not to fall back to the pacer again. As I came to the finish I saw two friends who had come to cheer and I realized I was qualifying for the Boston race... and while I like to think it was just rain streaming down my face, I think I cried a little bit.

Then I froze to death in the soaked state I had put myself into over the last three hours and 33 minutes, my friends taking turns to hold me and keep me and my blue lips from going hypothermic. 

And after an afternoon of pizza and grocery shopping on endorphins, those 23 hours awake took control, and I found myself on bar stool dozing as friends danced around me. I fell asleep with the glory that is knowing that your patellas are part of you, though clinging precariously, and that they do in fact have nerve endings.

Buying Friends, or How I Learned the Importance of My Dog

I just returned from two weeks at a camp somewhere west of here, a place of bad winter memories but bursting with spring excitement and adventure. The big pine trees towered over bare trails and the general lack of precipitation all winter made for spring- and even summer-like vibes for at least the first 12 of 17 days (then we got snow, but hey, we can pretend). 

I headed west with the intention of working long, hard days, proving my worth as Team Mom, and putting in just the right amount of miles on the ol' tennies to be fully prepared for my upcoming marathon.

I even thought I had the right combination of staff - a physical therapist with significant running experience, another very athletic PT, and a coach with a competitive past and present (mind you the present consists of basketball and softball leagues in his southern home, but hey, even old men are known to run from time to time). They all seemed open to the idea of putting in at least a couple of miles of my runs with me and I set out optimistic that for once I wouldn't be solo training with my Netflix and a treadmill, wondering why in the world no one likes me.

Day one I made the mistake of running one of the guys ten kilometers, and he was great! But also still sore three days later. The other two caught wind of this and I realized I'd lost any hope. 

But I knew they also were into hiking... 

So, day after day I tried to drag these bums from their afternoon workloads just for a hike. I mean, if you won't run 2-3 miles with me, we might as well hike a Californian mountain.

And then one day I saw it on Instagram: two of the boys had gone hiking without me. And posted them to social media to show the whole world that they didn't need me for an adventure.

This was the last straw. That afternoon I knocked on their door, covering the peep-hole so they wouldn't know it was me, their athletic arch-nemesis. I barged in, promising pancakes in exchange for aerobic pursuits. And that night, when we'd all finished our day's duties, I hiked a mountain at sunset with this coach, getting lost, but finding great vistas and crisp mountain air. 

Upon our return we phoned home, warning those that awaited our return that we would be home soon, but that they would have to go purchase flour and maple syrup before we arrived. I whipped up a fantastic batch of chocolate chip pancakes and we dined in style.

The next day I discovered their condo had a waffle iron, the perfect tool to prove my worth as a human and friend. think those "healthy" waffles and the side salad combined with the next day's sea salt chocolate chip cookies just might have done exactly what I intended: bought me two friends who will never run with me, but will always eat my pancakes.

And if that's not a close second to what I've dreamed of my whole life, I don't know what is.

I miss my white dog. He'll adventure without promise of pancakes.

Papa Doesn't Care

As the origins of this blog have shown, I love to travel and experience life in other places. As I’ve traveled more, I like the tourist offerings less and prefer to spend time becoming a regular at a restaurant or sitting in a park observing the people. In Argentina I opted for working for the skydiving company just to have a group of friends and something to do every day from 9am-9pm in a small town with virtually no tourists.

My recent move into the world of international athletics has offered some new and exciting opportunities in travel: Mom on the Road. I recently made a trip to Italy for a junior Freeski competition, herding 21 young athletes through Milan and the mountains north (where I also learned how to drive stick on mountainsides and in Milan city traffic, read earlier post).

It’s one thing to get my stalling self into the airport. Then comes “storing” my car in the rental car spots without Enterprise thinking I’m returning the orange Jeep while I run through the airport looking for any flat-brimmed hats trying to buy espresso from a vending machine while their skis lay in piles nearby. 

Then comes the “time killing” phase in which I’ve just collected four jetlagged teenagers and have two hours before the fifth arrives. Luckily in some cases I have the companionship of one of the coaches who has the desire and the insanity to drive a 9-passenger van into downtown Milan just to see the big church. So we go, we find parking, we don’t scrape off an entire side of the car - though that would never surprise me – and we head for the pigeon-filled, photo opportunity that is Milan’s duomo. 

The kids, not knowing what’s hitting them, start taking corn kernels from immigrants, allowing their friends to take pictures of them feeding the flying street rats. Little do they know these African men will indeed expect money for their troubles, and their Middle Eastern friend will definitely be trying to put a bracelet on their wrists (and expecting money). I herd and herd, shooing the strangers away, trying to make the athletes feel better about the fact that they just gave away 20 Euro in 19 seconds, and trying to get out of the plaza before more corn ends up in our hands.

As we're making our way off the square, I find the coach who brought us there, laughing as he mulls over the scene he's just witnessed. "That was funny, they just attacked you guys" to which I obviously thanked him for his help. And after a few more "NO"s to bracelet offers, we've almost made it away from the chaos when one final hand full of corn makes its way into our ranks. I tell everyone else just to not look. The one athlete reluctantly took the corn and doesn't care about the photo. The Syrian man says "HEY! PHOTO!" but we keep walking. He runs up beside our coach, "PAPA! Photo of your son!", met with an incredulous nonchalance and "Papa"'s response: "Papa doesn't care about his son."

And on we go, to ogle the Prada store in our North Face rain coats, eat paninis, and drive our manual transmissions back to the mountains. 

When You Have to Learn

Eventually all things merge into one and the years of talking about things we were going to learn either happen or don't and a river runs through it, unless we live in Utah and then it's more like a trail of bros and whiskey runs through it.

But really, I've been meaning to learn to drive stick since I was 15. Maybe at 15 I didn't realize how important a skill it would be to my existence, but Dad sold his Silverado that year and I went on with life thinking the life skills I needed were writing college papers and flirting with people I needed things from (that mostly only works in Spain and Italy when you're blonde, but I'm happy to play the card). 

In Argentina my Aussie companion let me drive our manual rental through deserted, flat, rural roads. In college I pretended to learn from my dad, a man as stubborn as I am, but also less patient, and on my uncle's Audi.

Back in January it became clear that I was coming to Italy for Junior World Championships, and I was told that all Italian rentals are manual and that my company has one standard truck to practice on. I vowed to learn on it. Fast-forward two months to the day I wake up at 2pm on a Sunday after my last night of winter bar work and realize I haven't learned a thing, haven't done my laundry, and still have to pack for two weeks of Team Momming 14-20 year old athletes. So, I never learned. I brought an extra coach, not really for the driving, but it allowed me to put off the driving.

On Wednesday, in an Italian village, I tried to drive two girls to the town pool using the old driving knowledge I had. It was downhill there, and not a problem until we stalled in an uphill intersection and I kept trying to get the car into 3rd from a stop, not realizing it wasn't 1st gear. I let one of the girls, a farm girl from Idaho pull it into the parking lot where I stalled around for an hour until two coaches came to collect me and the girls in a van. I had another hour of driving school on hairpin, Italian mountain roads, complete with a reverse out of a dead end street as children ran around the street - at night.

Thursday morning over the breakfast that would fuel a trip to the airport with a coach I asked him "Am I actually ready? Will this really be safe?" and he said "Yes, you'll stall a few times and you'll figure it out."

I stalled first in the town 20 minutes from our village, but that's the fault of the locals crossing the street to go to school.

The real test didn't come until we were still 2 hours from the Milan airport, in the Milan suburbs, and we turned a corner to find bumper-to-bumper traffic for the next two hours until the airport. That's an unexpected way to learn things quick. I had one solid stall on an uphill start, but the large green truck behind me probably didn't even realize it was happening.

Luckily the kids I got to take back from the airport were exhausted from travel and the sweetest, most supportive group I could ask for. I've found this week that 14 and 15 year olds are mean when you're bad at driving. Know why? They've never driven. They think it's easy. Well, yeah, your dad is awesome at driving. Your dad has also been driving as many years as I've been alive. 16 and 17 year olds think you're awesome if you can do it because their first car is probably automatic and they've probably committed a few moving traffic violations of their own. They are the ones that I will drive around in my vehicle.

So, we made it back, and mostly without many blatant errors, other than the time I was coming around a switchback corner in 2nd and couldn't get up the hill so I had to back down it into the hairpin corner, restart on a steep hill from a stop, all while a van came hurtling up the hill towards me. I did it, all because my passengers believed in me.

Plus, I'm hard to miss on the roads and most people seem to be avoiding the crazy blinger in the orange Jeep who can't seem to drive like an Italian to save her life.

I can't wait to get on that train on Thursday for rural northeast Italy.

Reminiscent

I am mostly a smell and taste person. I can catch the slightest whiff of a certain bakery odor and be taken directly to my apartment building in Madrid 4 years ago. Or a toilet and trash can and be immediately in Guatemala. I am transported by the scents that make up who I am as a human, the intricate workings of what it means to be me.

In most areas of life I am a visual learner. Tell me something once and you can be sure that best case scenario I will barely remember that I heard that piece of information at all. More than likely I might have some sort of dream-like inkling that something happened if I only saw it and until I've smelled or tasted an experience, dream on (absolutely no pun intended).

There are a few visuals that take me back, and I often wonder how much of that has to do with the amount of time spent in their presence (see below, or keep reading actually). I think that seems to be the only correlation as I'm often too busy running around and being thrown a thousand experiences at once to realize what is passing through my overactive eye membranes.

So it's no wonder that the visuals that speak to me are based around a few starchy fabrics and porcelain objects. I sat in the presence of a bidet and some over-starched towels in my northern Italian hotel the other day missing a prior life, one of slower schedules and lower water pressure. It spoke to me and reminded me to slow down a little bit, even if only to wash my feet in a butt-washing mechanism or really exfoliate the crap out of my dehydrated back (for which I completely blame Utah).

Give Me the Bags.

I never know what a given day might bring in my life. I've always been a planner and I do still make some great lists, but the chances that these lists make it to game time or when the actual doing happens are often slim, at least in winter and especially at events.

Back in early February I loaded up my pickup (rental), grabbed everything the team could possibly need or want, and drove West to Mammoth, California for a halfpipe and slopestyle contest. I met the teams as they came together from camps in Colorado and contests in Europe. As often happens in winter, flights proved a challenge to getting everyone to the first day of practice, but most figured out a way to get there, even if late. 

On that Monday night I learned that the halfpipe snowboard team had finally arrived in Reno, but their bags had not. They'd been rerouted out of Amsterdam on KLM to Chicago instead of Seattle. They were put on an American Airlines flight Chicago to Reno and made it. Their bags may or may not have gone to Seattle, may have been lost by KLM in Amsterdam, but when I called Delta (affiliated with KLM) they said the bags were no longer in their possession. I called our favorite Delta guy in Utah who put a flag on the one bag we really needed, the snowboard of an athlete, but he told me the bag was probably in the air and we wouldn't know its location until it landed. The plan was that the athlete's board would be stopped, based on the flag, and the coaches' bags would be put on a United flight from Reno to San Francisco to Mammoth, arriving once the practice we needed the athlete's board for was already over. 

So I waited. I called the Reno baggage desk and told them to call me AS SOON AS the bag arrived in Reno, which we were told first "it definitely will be coming to Reno". Upon further inspection and more calls with Janet The Bag Lady (saved in my phone and the coach's as such), it was changed to be "probably arriving in Reno at 6:30pm Tuesday". So at 7:00 I frantically paced the base lodge in Mammoth, figuring out who would be the one to drive to Reno if it arrived that night or what the next options would be.

At 7:20 my phone rang, Janet was off for the day but her replacement was happy to ask if I was "Mrs. Josey" ("Sure! Yes! That's me!") and tell me the bag had arrived. The baggage office would close at 10pm and with a 3 hour drive I couldn't make it that evening, so I planned to be there when the office opened Wednesday morning.

Wednesday I was on the road at 6:00, enjoying a beautiful sunrise and some great satellite radio when I was pulled over for the first time in my life and got my first speeding ticket from the ugliest cop I've ever seen who kept talking to me about his life and what my dreams and goals are. "Well, to get to the airport, honestly. Practice is at 2 and I need this snowboard". When I finally shook the goon, I was in Reno before the office opened, so I spent 15 minutes in Trader Joe's lapping the free coffee stand and filling my cart with the essentials: 2 6-packs, a case of wine, and cinnamon. 

The baggage claim office wasn't open so I went to check in at the opposite end of the airport where the rudest Alaskan Airlines attendant passed me off to American and the conversation was less-than optimistic: "Hi, I was just at the baggage claim office and they're not open but I was told they opened now" "Well, yes 10:00. Or...[looking at flight schedule on computer] definitely by 11:20" "Ok, or how about NOW? Like I was told?" "Yes, they should be there soon, or by 11:30." 

Back at the baggage office I found an employee in the ticket office, and my name written (Mrs. Josey in most cases) in notes all over the desk. She was new and didn't know where the bag was but did confirm that she heard about my bag. We walked back down (at the opposite end) to the check-in desk. As we pulled up, three women were maneuvering a cart with 3 black bags and the priceless green US Team bag perched on top...!! 

"THAT'S IT! All those are mine! I'll take them all! And that wax table!" They told me they only had my name on the one bag so we would have to get some confirmation numbers... I called the coach and it only took another half hour before I was sprinting through the airport alone, pushing a baggage card with 3 board bags to load them alone into my truck and then try to lift the wax table into the truck alone (easier said than done). No speeding tickets on the way back, but 3 hours later, as the halfpipe crew headed up the hill to practice, at 2:00 on the dot, I rolled into the hotel, threw the green bag out of the truck, graciously took the bottle of wine they gave me as thanks (since they still didn't know about the speeding ticket and that wine wasn't really equal to my troubles) and all went on their way. 

And somehow, mostly because of the madness of my life, I still haven't opened that wine... 

Oh Yeah, I Watch Netflix

I survived it, and I'm as surprised as you are.

I had heard the Sundance Film Festival was a crazy time to live in Park City. That every January a whole herd of PIBs (People in Black) would descend upon the town, in a fury so overwhelming I would beg my teams to take me to the mayhem of the X Games in upcoming years. 

As you may or may not know, I work a second job in order to party with all my friends who are in love. With now FIVE weddings between July 18 and September 5, 2015, I found a nice bar that caters nicely to locals to be a barback and "doorwoman" (BOUNCER; I throw a lot of 'bows). I work Friday and Saturday nights, running around, restocking, doing dishes, and hanging out with my favorite Aussie coworker and two great old bartenders.

Now, we have to remember what my life consists of. Five years ago I was finishing up my liberal arts career at a top small college. I could write philosophical papers on the inner workings of the South American writer's mind and move to analysis of political economy regressions. I carried my own intellectually and moved to DC to be surrounded by debates and constant workings of the deep chasms of my brain.

Since then, I followed my heart and my energy. Living in Spain, I worked on my language skills (let's just call them social skills, a spade is a spade after all). Now I work with athletes and I love it. I love the drive, the determination, the wide range of marketing, competition, travel logistics, and apparel I get to be a part of. It's awesome and I know it's something I should be doing.

Sundance, though, brings people that I just don't know how to deal with. As a bartender, my life revolves around being semi-social for 8 hours straight. I struggled. 

The last movie I tried to watch was Django, and I fell asleep. The last movie I watched straight through was in early December when I watched (and quoted to my friend) Jurassic Park for the millionth time. The last full-length movie before that? Elf last summer, and please don't judge me for watching Elf in August. It's my birthday month and I'm a Leo so I can.

The cheap level of the clientele impressed me. "How much is vodka? How much is a beer? OK I'll have water. And fries. And do you have like... free bread?" Yes, we do, and please leave.

The lack of wifi in our BAR was unacceptable. How else were they to blog on all the new films they were enjoying?!

We have a blatant "NO Alcohol Beyond This Point" sign that I or my coworker stand beside. I caught a customer going downstairs at 10pm with a glass of wine. She was appalled that I would prevent her from INTERVIEWING the other woman she was with there because the bar "was just too loud". Well, honey buns, it's a BAR. It's what we do. I don't always love the decibel regime we work under, but how else are all the kids in town to grind on each other!? The neighboring coffee shop opens at 6am; I'd try that.

Then one night I worked with the other girl barback who I got hired. Two blonde girls running around with cases of PBR, changing kegs, and checking IDs at the door. An older, long-haired (he reminded me of Captain Hook from the movie Hook) man stopped, was taken aback, and said to the two of us "Two nice-looking girls like you should be on the stage dancing not doing this!" I smiled, said thank you in the sugariest voice I could muster, and told him he should leave. The power I have has definitely gone straight to my head.

The town was packed, all kinds of people in a rush for their way-important festivities (being drunk all day from what I can tell) and the traffic was ridiculous. I never had trouble parking on the street at my house, but it was close and my anxiety driving home from Real Work every day escalated as I got closer to home.

Sundance was an adventure, one that I don't really ever want to repeat, but it did bring me the same as a two-week paycheck from Real Work in the first weekend, the same weekend I worked 36 hours from Friday at 7pm to Sunday at 7pm and returned home to eat cereal in a delirium and go to bed. 

We've Made Being Human So Difficult

Disclaimer: I know I am a little more hippie than my family. I was raised an L.L.Bean baby, one who sampled product and romped in the Maine woods. I have crunchier tendencies than many of my relatives, proven when I attended a small liberal arts college in a state also bordering Canada. 

I know I have been the one to have strong career goals and aspirations, that I'm the one that keeps following those dreams around the world. As I get older I think I am starting to realize I need something more basic. I've started imagining myself living in nature somewhere, running a rustic inn or bed & breakfast, guiding people on outdoor trips, making bedrooms that smell like pine and lighting a fire in the living room and outside in the fire pit on a regular basis. I want my kids to play with sticks and rocks and make forts with the occasional Monopoly game night but no toys.

Sure, I'm referring to a back-to-basics existence, but have you ever thought about how difficult we've made being a living creature? We wear clothes. We design those clothes. We have our own styles and people who analyze these styles and base their lives around what can and should be worn. We took basic ingredients that are delicious and beautiful and colorful and then decided we needed to have processed food. In plastic, another thing we had to work to make.

Some people call it innovation, but do you ever think it's more work than it's worth?

We spread the world out, requiring transportation and means of communication and pulling us from people we love and who love us. We find people we love, then we move away from them. We go to institutes of higher learning and are told to never settle and to learn more and more, but when you learn more there's just more to learn. It will never end. My to-read book list only grows. My brain only ever has more questions. I only see more possibilities to the point of not seeing any possibilities at all. 

We've formulated other living things to be what we want them to be, thereby just making more work for ourselves. I love my dog, but I still have to feed him, exercise him, get him shots, register him with official offices. 

I know I overthink most things I come in contact with, but that's just a curse of being human. That won't change, that's what we are made of. Many of the things we worry about are constructions of our brains, but even more often they are based on feelings that we evolved into. Do iguanas love? Probably not. And I bet they never worry if their families are safe or if all their dreams will come true.

The mind is an amazing piece of machinery, but isn't it just another accessory to give us unnecessary challenges? 

So maybe someday I'll try to simplify my life. Move to the woods, grow my own food, give my kids a hatchet and some rocks to innovate with all day. But that innovation I've just given them is only going to run rampant in their brains and eventually they'll be some sort of astrophysicist or neurosurgeon. And these jobs will exist and we'll keep striving for greatness and challenging ourselves, just going with the complexity of being human as generations have before us. 

You're So Vain, I Know This Song Is About Me

Growing up I had this insane fear of admitting that I was a Leo. You know that stereotypical July-August baby who only talks about himself, won't admit failure, and who seems to just have too much confidence.  I thought there must be some other character I could be in this game of Life. I didn't have to be the self-absorbed lion, did I?

As I've come into my mid-twenties, this era of SELF-DISCOVERY and LEARNING (read: that time in your life where you realize you have to accept your flaws and it's probably too late to change much anymore), I've started to accept the pieces of astrology that actually have proven to be true. 

In my case, I've learned that I have surrounded myself with friends who are exactly that which I feared would come about in me. They like talking about themselves. They are confident. They believe they have qualities greatly superior to others. Often they don't let you get a word in edge-wise and their volume regulator too-often seems to be broken. Yes, these are all qualities I have, too. Sure, my friends think they're great, but that's why I'm friends with them, right? Because they deserve their arrogance. They know what they're great at (being awesome) and they own it. 

I'll be the first to admit that I can't lift weights without a mirror. I can't do arms with sleeves on my shirt. How can I know I'm great without a visual?! I was caught in the gym looking at my rippling abs in the mirror the other night, but I did think I was the only one there so it's acceptable.

So yes, we're all vain. And I will never stop believing that every song is about me or some issue related to me. Didn't they write it about us?! Isn't that the point of music?! That my friends are great enough to deserve a song?!

To be perfectly honest, though, I want to point out some traits of my people that I read in an article recently ("This Is How To Love a Leo" by Bryonie Wise). 

This article points out our ego and eludes to our stubborn side, but elaborates on the complexity of a Leo. We doubt that we can be loved completely and have more feelings than we often see in others, causing us to wonder if we will always have more passion and feeling than those we come in contact with. We have an adventurous side that makes us run off into the world, seeking something, though that thing is probably adventure in its purest form and it's a feeling that we have and chase. We are loyal, in the way of a lion, but to be true and loyal to another person we must learn to be true and loyal to ourselves. This makes us strong and in doing so requires others trust us before we can love. We want everyone around us to be who they are and don't hold expectations other than just be that person that each is. It can seem demanding or pressured, but it's just a need for others to be as true as we are. 

We know how to love, but we are shy in accepting love and support from others, when really we need and fear that support. We are stubborn, but kind and compassionate and we internalize all the issues and feelings in the world. We want to be held, but we also need the time to just be strong ourselves. It's a questioning of whether our compassion is a gift or a curse, but is a responsibility we hold dearly. Ultimately, while we seem to need to be the center of everything, our innate sense of feeling and loving requires a simple life. We appreciate slow. We appreciate intimate moments in the middle of nowhere that give life a meaning and profundity that we require.

We may seem demanding or as if our expectations are too high to meet, but at the end of the day we just want truth and honesty and love for us and yourself. Be strong, be who you are, and if you want to love us as a close friend or romantically you have to be ready to be fully exposed and own the person you are.

That article can be found here: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/this-is-how-to-love-a-leo/ and while I find so much of it resonates with me, let this be my statement of understanding that astrology is often a lot of bollocks. I don't necessarily believe it, but this was an external justification and wording of all that I know myself to be, so I had to share.

And all the girls do dream that they'll be our partner. Naturally. We're so awesome.

The Deceit of Words and Relief of January

I don't want to say that words necessarily do us wrong. When we need meaning, feeling, or expression it's words that we rely on. Sure, my face is also exceptionally expressive and usually deceives me more than my words because my words are better at having some thought behind them. My face just lays it out there without thinking. As if my face is the extrovert here and my words are only slightly more introverted (because I do say what I think, as well, usually to my detriment in public).

But what are words? You look at this page and see shapes and swirls and lines that somehow have some meaning to you. You see it as complete thoughts - if I'm lucky - and you relate or are angered or complacent or don't understand where in the world I'm coming from. And that's acceptable because that's what we hope words do.

The problem I'm facing lately is in definitions. There are certain things we all agree on. A cat is what it is. It's the clearance cat I wanted to buy a couple weeks ago or any other construction made of fuzz and love and meows and mice-hunting instinct. It's just a cat. A car is a car. A song even is a song, as long as we're talking to those with regular hearing abilities.

The next step up is the regional discrepancies. I drink a soda while my cousins drink pop, old coworkers drink Coke, and someone else is having a soft drink somewhere.

But this isn't the word issue. The issue is a common one among young people, I think. How do we define "relationship"? What makes something "serious"? And why are we all so insistent on accepting that we "like" someone but that we don't want a "relationship"? Isn't a relationship just an ongoing series of spendings of time together? And that has a whole spectrum of being "serious" that depends on the person engaged in the act. Does spending a few hours at a bar a couple of times a week constitute serious if it happens more than twice? Three times? Why do we have to define this?

I've always been one to go with the flow. I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of opinions, but when it comes to spending time with someone, why aren't we just doing exactly what we want without being scared away? Just go, see what happens, get over it.

And then there's the recent issue of calling something "Christmas" that to me this year just seemed like another day. Or "New Years", that moment I have 6 empty PBR cans and two empty mugs trying to get to the dishwasher while people count "10-9-8..." and sweat starts pouring out of my temple. It seems to just be another hour in a day, a moment I am where I am, a time I might wish to be with family more than usual, but really I just miss family all the time and wonder what this Utah place is going to have that I can define as "good" or "serious" or "long-term".

Because those are really just definitions, too, right?

So, while January was confirmed yesterday to be the busiest and worst month logistically in the year for us, I am relieved to have survived the holidays and to continue to figure out what the world means when they use words.