When Your Powers Combine. . .

Three of the most powerful forces in my universe combined this week: an author I LOVE (Jen Lancaster) doing in a book signing in the city I LOVE (Seattle, where else?) the same week as my MOST beloved Folklife Festival.

As if I weren't planning it anyway, I'm hereby officially doing a road trip home the end of May. Yes it's awhile off but that just gives me time to ponder the wonderfulness of this triple threat.

First, there's really no need to laud the magnitude of said author. Seriously? Just check out her blog and prepare to be converted. 'Nuff said. But what makes it better is that she's condescending to do a signing at one of my favorite bookstores, which happens to be within 10 minutes of my house.

Pretty much the only thing this bookstore DOESN'T have going for it is that it's not in a creaky old building with misshapen, wobbly wood floors and tight, jagged corners wherein to crack open monstrous tomes filled with Russian disparity. Ahhhh.

Luckily, they DO have several restaurants, over sized chess games, and weekly literary readings to make up for it. And the best bit? The used books are mixed right in with the new ones! I know some people prefer the crisp whiteness of new books but old books have history. HISTORY. Reading a used book is like constructing an emotional connection with some unseen spirit of the past. Unless it's a really crappy book, then you can feel all elitist for not having such awful taste.

As if it weren't enough the same week we have the Folklife Festival. This is my all time, hands down FAVORITE thing to do in Seattle. Every year that I go I leave feeling like I need to start wearing more tie-dye, and that my (limited) jewelry collection is gaudy and crypto-fascist. I resolve to eat nothing but gyros and peroshki from that point on, and to finally pursue my obvious talents as the key member of a drum circle. In my opinion, if you're too self-conscious to get up and bang along with the group then you shouldn't be allowed to stare at the bra-less hippie dancing next to you. And that's half the fun.

So if you're in Utah, you're invited on my road-trip. And if you're in Seattle, well, you're invited on a one-way road trip back to Utah.

One word of caution, I WILL be singing my family's favorite road trip song . . ."Country roooooooad take me hoooooome to the plaaaaace I beloooohooooong!"

V-Day

This year I've managed to harness the brute force of optimism and recognize why it's great to be a single girl on Valentine's Day. Just don't call it "Single Awareness Day" because really? That stopped being funny in about 8th grade.

I think my path to enlightenment started in high school when, in an obscenely romantic gesture a guy showed up to my early morning seminary with a bouquet of roses and a bucket of chocolate (you heard! a bucket!)

Terribly sweet right? (Definition Sweet: Used to describe an act that has the potential for excellence but only if it came from someone else. See Great Personality)

Yeah, it would have been nice if I wasn't dating someone else at the time (holy awkward moment Batman!). . . someone else who thoughtfully forked out the dough for a bouquet of baby's-breath (FYI guys? Not good. Nooooot gooooood.) It didn't make matters any better that Casanova lived about two hours away putting his start time to somewhere around the 4am mark. Yeah. I inspire greatness . . . just out of the wrong guys.

But this year I'm optimistic. Any guy bearing flowers and chocolate will be received graciously and not with the adolescent awkwardness I'm still trying to shake.

Therefore here are my reasons why it's great to be a single girl on Valentine's Day:

• Everyone EXPECTS you to go out with your girlfriends and yet staying at home in sweats is equally acceptable


• You can smile at the tension in the faces of the married men you work with as they try to finagle some time alone with their wives


• It's not quite so sad when you tell someone that the best gift you received was from your Aunt


• Or that that gift was complete with a mini-teddy bear, a bottle of body spray in "cotton candy fantasy" and a "glamour pack" with sparkly accoutrements for "the young at heart"


• You can get as glammed up with the afore mentioned sparkles without anyone assuming you're going to put-out at the end of the night


• While all the other smug couples are crammed into their chick-flicks you can sneak into the only Sci-Fi flick playing and have plenty of leg room


• In future years you can look back on the day and not remember a two hour wait outside Olive Garden, but the announcement of another Star Wars movie, which fills you with glee that Lucille's admonition that Annyong go "see a Star War" is now entirely possible!

Happy Lovin.