The Break

Sorry for not writing in such a long time. Finals at school really got crazy and ate up a lot of time then the mad dash to get packed and ready to go to Portland took up the rest of my free time. Long story short I've had no time. If you need some info, you can follow short, boring blurbs on my Twitter account or check facebook. But I'll try to get something up here sooner than later. The weather has been insane so we've not been going out much so I don't have much excuse. I'll keep you posted.

Dying, A Little Piece At A Time

Ugh, I've been so lucky to own a motorcycle for the last few months. It affords such amazing parking opportunities here on campus. Despite living in Utah, the weather has been exceptionally mild and has allowed me the opportunity to ride in comfort right up into the first week of December. The Greatest Snow On Earth? More like down right mild and fabulous.
So today, as it was supposed to snow, (which it has) I decided to drive and find myself a parking spot one way or another. After about 20 minutes of driving round and round, I gave up and parked on the opposite side of campus next to Baskin Robbins. Let's just say its a satellite parking lot that should require a shuttle service to and fro. But I parked there, in the back, and looked to the bright side:
"I'm clinically obese and a little exercise will do me good," I asserted. "I should consider myself lucky and choose to walk this far every day!"
But I wasn't used to it. The walking that is. My legs were atrophied and fat, glucose and plaque slowing the much needed oxygen my muscles needed. As I crested the stairs after exiting my secret elevator shortcut, I felt a funky itch that permeated my legs. It started out splotchy, showing up here and there over a few small surfaces on my stubby legs. But as the distance grew and I neared my classroom, I felt like I had contracted a fresh brew of genital herpes... but on my legs. The itch was intense and the tingle unrelenting. If I wore shorts often and had some semblance of a social life, I might have been concerned at the possibility that I brushed up too close to someone on public transport or at a raging techno party.
But I don't ride public transport.
And I don't go to parties.
It, I deduced, was fatness attacking the last small ray of dignity I have left in life: my ability to heft my body by my own power. This herpes-like itch is no doubt the precursor to the eventuality that I will spend my life in an Apple Red Jazzy Scooter like my grandmother's. The types of motorized chairs you see buzzing down the sidewalk with a thyroid-conditioned potato sack of a woman spilling out as the chair wheezes to carry her home. Just enough room for crunchy peanut butter and a family pack of Twinkies, her front mounted basket relishes being the only part of her scooter not weighed down to the point of exhaustion.
This is me. This is what I am becoming.
So if you feel the unfamiliar itch of what might be a sexually transmitted disease on your legs, get tested, because it could be that you're just getting fat like me.

Better Than Socks

My mom makes these two incredibly delicious cakes that I absolutely love and demand for every birthday (even for other peoples birthdays). I call the first one, Skor Cake as it is made with Skor bars. The second--and I am sure of this--is called Better Than Sex Cake. My sister and I have an on going, heated dispute over this naming thing. She is sure that Better Than Sex Cake is actually the name for what I call the Skor Cake. She asserts that what I refer to as Better Than Sex cake is in fact called Barber Shop. I assure her that I understand Barber Shop to be one of the many names given to Better Than Sex Cake. I remind her that it is often called Better Than Robert Redford cake or Sex In A Pan as well, but that doesn't stop the name Better Than Sex Cake from being good and accurate at least in our family.
Well, all things considered, both cakes are delicious and very nearly better than sex. So I'd say we were both right. And since we are on the topic, I'd just like to state that I bought 16 new pairs of socks yesterday. My bar for "Better Than..." is now raised. I had forgotten how good your feet could feel and how odorless they can become by wearing new, clean socks. I have reluctantly been holding on, hoarding even, my old socks for fear that the economy would tank (even worse) and the purchase of new socks would put us in line behind the Detroit Big 3 automakers for a possible bailout. I didn't want this. But I put my worries aside, reminding myself that I'm only paying 50 cents more a gallon for gas now than I was when I turned sixteen. The savings more than out weigh the $12 I spent.
My feet are thanking me, and now I'll be asking for Better Than Socks Cake come my birthday.

My Sister's Opinion of Better Than Sex Cake

My (Correct) Opinion of Better Than Sex Cake

The Fabulous World of Soap

You know what smell I hate? I hate the smell of hotel bar soap.
Hotel soap just smells down right strange. Not only does it feel waxy and dry out your skin, it just smells foul.
My wife uses body wash, the kind that comes in a bottle, so her need for bar soap is essentially nonexistent.
I on the other hand, cannot clean myself with body wash alone. It feels wasteful. I buy a $5 bottle of Axe body wash, dump out a dollop and get no farther than my armpits and the rug on my chest before the lather runs out. By that point, I have to refill to do my arms and stomach. Then again for below the waist. Then again for below the knees and feet. The feet are separate. They deserve and require extra attention.
But with bar soap, you just run the gamut with bar in hand and by the time you're done, *POOF* you're clean from head to toe.
Whenever we run out of bar soap, I loathe being forced to lather with body wash alone, so I crack open the cabinet and dig through the spider webs to the back where there lies a clear plastic bin filled with hotel shampoo and soap.
It is truly a last resort because without bar soap, I just end up cleaning the important parts, or "the hot spots" as I call them. Some places don't stink even after a week. Other places stink after just a day. Those spots...those spots are "the hot spots."

...where was I going with this? I honestly can't figure out where I was trying to take this post.
Anyway, enjoy showering, enjoy whatever vehicle you use to get yourself clean. And next time you're in a hotel, take special note of the bar of soap. Look at its appearance, how it feels and how it has a nasty, weird unisex scent that is neither offensive nor beneficial to man or woman.

Long Time No See

I told you I wouldn't abandon you and I have. Sure, Thanksgiving just ran it's course and I was with family. Sure, I had to read a 175 page book during that time and dream up some creative for the Burger King project. But what about all the days before Thanksgiving Logan? I hear you asking that question and I've heard you asking since my last post on November 20th! What the heck man! We're approaching two weeks with this dry spell. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm scared. I don't feel adequate. Sure I'm fat, balding, hairy pale and the antithesis of hygenic, but that's not it. I feel inadequate and self conscious about my creativity. Sure, you give me praise and say I've got game. My mom does too and strangely enough, my wife doesn't think I'm fat. I get it, we can all say nice things when we want to make someone feel good. But what if a person really isn't good enough? Not good enough to do what they do best. Worse yet, what if someone IS good enough but doesn't feel like it or recognize it in themselves? How damaging that might be! What glorious potential might be lost from such short sightedness!
So fail not! Don't give up! Exploit your dastardly sub-par talents to their utmost! I think an excerpt from a book report I wrote last night sums up this annoying necessity best:

"The detail and precision with which he tells his stories is painful at times, but so undeniably exhaustive that one must simply marvel. One cannot question a word of this book no matter how amazing it might sound. His telling of the sights, sounds and smells is so thorough that you can almost feel yourself in a crowded political arena; you can smell the perspiration and melting make-up on Nixon’s forehead as Mickelson describes the Nixon-Kennedy debate of 1960 first hand. He murders us mercilessly with exhaustive details to ensure that the reader finds himself at a minimum of 100 pages into the book before realizing he might be bored. What a wonderful journey though. What a wonderful surprise to be sucked into the mind of Mickelson and relive his fascinating personal history with every gory detail and every personal reflective thought and emotion described in painstaking detail. This book is frighteningly descriptive and repetitive detail is poured over the reader ad nauseam. With but one source to fill this work (his own experience and sharp memory) Mickelson does a masterful job of capturing the reader in a wealth of detail, emotion and fact. Fact, emotion and detail that no one will dare refute as they are the personal property of one very lucky and well traveled, Sig Mickelson."

From Whistle Stop To Sound Bite: Four Decades of Politics and Television by Sig Mickelson,
as reviewed by Logan Tanner