happy 27

brett turned 27 on saturday. it was everything he ever dreamed it would be. well, at least that's what i like to tell myself since i planned out the day...

the day was supposed to go a little something like this:
wake up, brett goes on his popcorn trail, brett receives gifts of a new grill and frisbee disks, we spend the day playing frisbee golf in the park ending with good grilled eats.

the day went a little more like this:
popcorn trail, gifts, SNOW AND FREEZING CRAP BLOWING AT HIGH SPEEDS, kung fu movie.

it was a good day and we did end up braving the weather to grill out on our back deck. i will admit that we probably aren't the best grillers in the world (yet). notice below we're using paper to light our briquets. but, we did end up with some half grilled vegetables and chicken that we ended up having to microwave. they still had that "grilled" taste though, so it was all worth it. happy birthday bretty. -sn

grill thrill

taming silver

my mom's hair

my mom has a sweatshirt with a print of a native american woman on the front. the woman's hair is wild and flowing, curling in the wind. it seems to be alive in its own untamable way. it makes the woman look strong and independant and free. my mom has the same hair. It's thick and wild and silver. and most of the time she wears it long, just like the woman on her sweatshirt.

even when i was little i knew my mom was different. and the way i could tell was that her hair was not cut short and proper like all the other moms. of course, her personality was different. but this difference was, for me, made manifest in her wild hair. it was a physical difference that anyone could recognize. i love my mom's hair.

but, i did not always love it. i remember this one time when my mom tried to dye her hair red. the silver in her hair soaked up the red while the black rejected it. my mom had flaming RED WINGS. i remember sitting in church watching my mom up at the front signing the song we were singing. i was a teenager at that time and i was horrified that a) my mom knew sign language and was signing every song at the front of church and b) she had flaming red wings. i recall wishing that the gates of hell would take back its flames and then waiting for the gates of hell to open up and swallow ME for having such horrible thoughts.

once, when i was in the seventh grade i was in the girls' bathroom at school primping before the boys' A-team basketball game. i was a cheerleader, a very skinny, dorky cheerleader. one of the other girls walked in and said, "sara your mom's here. she has a fishnet on her head." oh man.

i've grown up watching my mom wrestle with her hair. these were epic battles--buns, french braids, fish nets, huge thick pony-tails, and ultimately... scissors. one time my mom came home and her hair had been chopped back, quieted, all the way up to her ears! i couldn't believe it. i felt as if the whole world had been knocked out of orbit. where was my mom?

it took me awhile to recognize my mother's strenth and beauty. it took me awhile to appreciate her independance and her being different. it took me awhile to understand why she wanted to take me to an indian pow-wow rather than take me to the mall. it took me awhile to realize that riding the public bus WAS actually fun. it took me awhile to be thankful that she, along with her fishnet head, came to watch me be a horrible cheerleader. it took me awhile to figure out that it's not actually a fishnet but a really cool hair holder type thing. my mom is so different than any other woman on the planet. as a youngster i would have much rather had her just blend in. but then she chopped her hair and suddenly i realized that this was the woman who was teaching me to be a woman. she was the one teaching me what it meant to be independant, creative, and strong. luckily her hair fought back and grew long again.

life under the tent

tools

Here is an interaction brett and i recently had with each other.

brett walking up the driveway looking dirty carrying some tools: "hey, hey! here comes mr. toolman, your toolman husband."

me: "aren't those my tools?"

brett: "yeah."

to his credit he did attach some fixtures to the jeep's luggage rack that can hold our bikes. he drove around the block with the bikes attached and they didn't fall off. so...he is somewhat of a tool guy. but personally, i think brett with a paintbrush seems more natural.

i smelled a butt

so, this weekend was filled with silly butt-smelling fun. i, along with brett and five of my nieces went to check out the grossology exhibit at the museum. we learned about bruises, barf, and boogers. we listened to robots shaped like faucets tell us why our noses drip gooey gunk when we're sick. we filled up stomachs with soda until we were rewarded with resounding belches. we slid down tongues, passed through stomachs, squeezed through intestines onto squishy brown mats that were supposed to be poop. we climbed a skin wall complete with pores and scabs. we played a life-sized game of operation. and we listened to various pitches of toots while learning about the tightening and loosening of butt-muscles. but the day would not have been quite the same had we not found the suspiciously, lonely activity tucked away in the corner of the large open room. i was asked to close my eyes, pass my sniffer over a few small openings and guess the escaping mystery odors. my choices were a) mouth, b) armpit, c) foot, or d) anus.

i was through with the game after the first snif. anus.

PS. i tried to make like the game was cool and fun so that my nieces would also smell anus, but they knew better than to enter that lonely corner. --SN

here's the dirt

i would like to write about the dirt on the end of my nose.

every year in the spring this small patch of "dirt" decides to hang out on the end of my nose. april comes along and with it the sun and with IT the dirt. as spring warms its way into summer, the dirt patch on my nose becomes darker and more noticeable. good friends, the kind that wouldn't let me walk around with my fly open, will say to me, "you have something on the end of your nose." but other people just try not to stare.

this dirt is a permanent part of my nose through the summer months. i cannot wipe it off. and quite honestly, i welcome the dirt each year. it means the sun is shining and that i have been enjoying its warmth. the next time you see me take a good look at the dirt. what you'll see is just a clump of tightly packed freckles happily thanking the sun with their dirt-like presence.

giving the intern some props

we have an intern at work right now, a charming young lad named Josh. Joshua keeps a "vlog." that's a weblog...just with videos. i think they're a riot. so i will now be linking to josh and his silly silly vlog. enjoy.

Bio 210 "no geeks allowed"

i have recently dug out the ol' jansport, shrugged it up onto my shoulders, and headed back to school. awhile back i got this idea in my head that i wanted to get a nursing degree. that way i could travel around the world, saving it one country at a time. the idea seemed so much cleaner and easier in my head. but the reality is that it's just a lot of hard work and having to deal with college freshmen and college seniors. i believe that those two groups are the WORST two groups on any given college campus, and i'll tell you why. college freshmen are still on their "high" of being high school seniors and yet they know nothing about anything. and college seniors believe that they can change the world by just talking a lot of nonsense. i'm sorry if i am offending anyone, but please realize that i, myself, have been part of both of these two horribly annoying groups.

i am currently taking biology 210, it's an intro course. you see, my first time through college was the absolute avoidance of anything science. i didn't even drink soda because of the chemical changes that carbonation can cause. sometimes i didn't even want to breath because of all the sciency things that happen in my body when i do. but obviously i really screwed myself. once i got off of MY college senior "high" and shut my mouth i realized that changing the world means actually doing something; doing something means helping people; and helping people in the way that i want to help them means SCIENCE. so now i live, eat, and breathe science. yes, i have started breathing again.

because bio 210 is an intro course i have to deal with many-a-college freshmen. freshmen, bless their hearts, ask questions like, "will this be on the test?" and "how long do i have to study for this exam?" i really don't know how the professor keeps his composure at these moments. if it were me i would say, "no...none of this will be on the test. not any of it. on the next test i will be testing you on mozart." or "you must study 1 million hours for this test. if you fail to study 1 million hours for this test i will mark you off 1 million points." those freshmen, they'll learn. i remember studying 1 million hours for tests when i was a freshman.

not only do i have to deal with these non questions, but i also have to deal with being very, very UNCOOL. when i was in college i think that i might have been cool, at least sometimes, but no longer. i am now the old person. i come to class wearing my 'professional' work clothes. i carry yogurt in my backpack, my backpack that is out of style. i get confused when trying to register for classes ON-LINE. i don't worry about "who's house we're going to drink at?" i just go home and do it. i do not put away my things when the professor is still talking, even if the clock reads 5:15pm--the end of class. and in lab i absolutely freak out about being able to see onion cells under a microscope. it's true. i cannot even tell you how cool i think that is and how UNCOOL that makes me to college freshmen. it doesn't help that i actually YELL OUT things like "wow!" "this is CRAZY" and "i can't believe what i'm seeing!" while my eyes are pressed up to the scope. when i can finally bring myself to gaze away from the cells, i look up to find freshmen boys looking kind of horrified and freshmen girls giving each other that secret eye-roll that says "what a geek!" i know that look girls, i've given it myself.

i'm just afraid that one day i may walk up to my classroom door to find a sign that says "Bio 210 NO GEEKS ALLOWED." then what would i do? would i sag my trousers, and unbutton my blouse a few buttons? would i try to quickly apply as much make-up as i could and tousle my hair so it looked like i had just gotten up? would i walk in the door and immediately ask "do we HAVE to have class today?" should i start carrying cheetos instead of yogurt in my backpack? i guess it's good to prepare for these kinds of things in advance. -SN

world 5-2

brett pulled out his old nintendo system yesterday. i think that was a big mistake on his part. i mean, we rarely have enough time as it is for more than a passing kiss and a "see you later." but NOW...there are world's to conquer! brett, brett, brett...you really should have seen this coming. you see, i was never allowed to have any sort of video games when i was young. the closest i ever got to having my own video game was when on saturday mornings my dad would bring me to the fun-factory in the old run down ghost-town mall. all it had was a fun factory, a small movie theatre, and many many darkened store windows with shadows of naked manicans looming in the back. my dad and i would go there and play a few rounds of double dragon and then i would be off to play the games that spit out pink tickets. i always had grandious ideas for those tickets. i kept them in my sock drawer and counted and recounted them every week like somehow maybe i would have won more tickets...in my sleep. i was saving them to get a coloured walkman. of course BUYING a walkman would have been the cheaper way to go...but probably not as much fun. i finally ended up throwing those tickets away when i left home for college. i never even cashed in one of those well fought for tickets...not even for the sparkly bouncy ball or that plastic spider ring. those things are so great. i mean, people REALLY think that you have a big black spider on your finger.

anyway, nintendo. bad. i've already spent too many hours of my saturday listening to the ding, ding, ding, ding of those cutey-pie mario brothers collecting coins. now, just b/c i myself did not have nintendo when i was little does not mean that i did not spend many weekend mornings playing at my friends' houses. my friends had all the games, including that weird pad thing that made you look like a bafoon while you were madly jumping up and down trying to get some poorly drawn olympic athlete to perform the triple jump. BUT, don't think for an instant that just b/c i did not have a normal american childhood that i don't know some tricks of the trade. i mean, i know where the mushrooms handing out free lives are. and i also know which bricks have a secret stash of extra bling-bling. however, since i only got to play on random saturdays scattered throughout the year...i never got past world 4-1. well my super mario loving friends...i have finally hit the big time. I've made it to 5-2. --SN

spending time with bretty j.

bretty j is my husband of four months, eighteen days, sixteen hours and forty-seven minutes. exactly that length of time ago brett jeremy nelson gave me a gold ring and kissed me on the lips in front of about one hundred and forty-seven people. he is my best friend. nobody makes me laugh as much as him. one time he walked past me sitting quietly on the couch. without a word he turned on one of his favorite radio-head songs and proceeded to dance like a robot through the entire five or six minute song. sometimes he pretends that he is being punched in the face in slow motion. his fist comes up real slow, it hits his chin, and he turns his chin ever so slowly as it catches the blow. then finally, out comes his tongue like he's blowing out that mixture of blood and teeth that only exists in rocky movies. he wears these big aviator glasses like he's just walked out of the television show "chips." he recently bought some old black cowboy boots from the local thrift shop that he proudly wears with trouser socks and jeans from old navy. and he often says funny things in his sleep, including things about princesses. there are times when i think my face may just crack in half when i am around him.

my favorite thing to do with brett is...everything. i think that anything with him is pretty fun if not a downright big fat riot. when we were dating every monday night was "bs" night. that's brett and sara night for those of you with fowl mouths. our greatest 'bs' night achievment was getting our dirty little paws on the master key of Calvin College. that night we snuck into the pool, past campus security, for a 2am dip. it probably felt more exciting and dangerous than it really was, but i swear i could hear mission impossible music pounding in my ears as we "hit the deck," and padded through the complete darkness to the pool. that is until i rammed my face into a locker room wall and everything went black and the music stopped.

bretty is a do-er. where i could sit and read contently for hours upon hours, brett needs to be fiddling with something with his fingers, bouncing his knees, or feeling the wind in his face. he gets me up off the couch and out of narnia. in the summer we hike and bike and swim and sleep in tents. in the winter we sled down hills on couches, walk on frozen lakes, and make snow-angles on midnight walks. if it weren't for brett i think i might be a hermit.

i started school right after brett offered me his hand. school has made me quite busy. it's hard for me to find time for everything sometimes. it feels as if once i dig my way out from under a pile of DNA, i discover i don't have any clean underwear. and once i have psuedo washed my underwear in the filthy washing machines at the Fulton mat, i realize i haven't eatten in five days. and once i make myself some din-din, i'm slapped with a quiz about zygotes. and once i've studied about the mysterious ways of sex cells, i find that my bretty j. and i haven't felt each others' faces, haven't seen each others' pearly whites, haven't stretched in silly yoga poses, haven't made plans and dreamed dreams together in a long long time. and once i see this truth, i see that brett has learned to fill his time in his own ways. suddenly it seems as if we're strangers that share the same alarm clock.

life is hard to balance sometimes isn't it? it's hard to do the right thing at all times. it's hard to look past my own nose into the eyes of another. but more and more i'm realizing that i am not the sun. the world does not revolve around me. even when i have needs they should not come before the needs of another. to change means to change myself first. it's like that creepy could-be child molester once said, "i'm starting with the man in the mirror." so, tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off I'm going to touch brett's face. I'm going to spread his lips apart so i can see his pearly whites. Then I'm going to tell him my dream of looking for orion with him in the nigerian sky. does orion exist over there? then we will begin climbing to new hieghts. literally, we're going to a climbing gym --SN

*thank you sdk for finally writing in your blog :)