One of the latest and greatest injustices of the world . . .television world . . . my world is that the single best program (both of comedy and drama) ever to hit the airwaves is stopped dead before the surfing is properly ended, I'm talking they're not even giving us a touch once alive again 60 seconds . . .I'm talking about my most beloved Pushing Daisies being touched twice, dead forever off the air by the heartless heartlessnesses at American Broadcasting Company, may they feel guilt for the rest of their lives for uprooting the sweetest flower in the desolate garden of modern tv programing. I watch the last remaining episodes, knowing that it is all terminal, soon I will have to bid farewell to my weekly visits to The Pie Hole that actually makes me, a pie fence sitter, want a piece, and to the hystericalness of Emerson Cod, the witty zingers of Olive Snook, Aunt Lily's eye patch, Chuck's inspiring wardrobe and most of all . . .sniff and sad sigh, to Ned, the single most precious human male to be created by tv writers. My only source of comfort, as small and insignificant as it may be, is that They are talking about making a movie. If this is the case, at least I can own a slice of the most real yet fanciful bit of lovely . . .if it is not, I shudder at the thought.
Oh woe to me, if only NBC, who believes in shows, had picked Pushing Daisies.

I just finished a freshly and singly baked cookie with my delicate rose-painted bone china tea cup of milk. I love drinking milk from a tea cup, it makes me feel all Marie Antoinette-in-her-little-village esque, which I suppose is to say nostalgic and quaint with a touch of quirky refinement, don't ya know. And sin of all horrible sins, I'm listening to Kurt Bestor's album Noel. Forgive me the public confession, but I, Caitlin Cotten, a week and four days before Thanksgiving am listening to Christmas music. But I basically can't help it, or I can, but I'm choosing not to. Because I have not-so-innocently but with much joy and love broken the no Christmas music until Thanksgiving rule a week or so before Thanksgiving with this album for many moons. I always start with this one, it's like soft-core Christmas music, I won't listen to the hard-core stuff until afterwards. Besides, I love love love the thrill I get from hearing the first few bars of 'We Three Kings.' Chills and uncontainable grin. I get the same feeling when I see the mountain tops covered with snow and the beautiful orange and red water color of their bases. I adore this time of year, fall in full swing, the air thick with sweet-spicy aroma and prayers of gratitude. There is something about Autumn that just makes you want to give thanks. I get all jittery with anticipation at the thought of the Macey's Thanksgiving Day parade and being able to wear tights and sweater dresses and plaid plaid plaid. I simply can't get enough of the plaid this season. Oh so British, oh so fun and oh so adorable. Just do me a favor, step outside and take a big breath (through your nose) and inhale that delicious and delightful November air, you'll smell cold freshness, maybe some fire and just a hint of pumpkin pie. If only you could capture that smell and keep it for whenever you were particularly blue.
Oh and how do you like the note's makeover, it just so happens that fall is perfect time for a new look.

Here's the thing of it: I really, really don't like it when people say something when they have nothing to say . . .but it's not like I don't have anything to say, I just don't know what to say. Re-entry into anything is difficult, so I'm using this as the re-entry:
For no particular reason or many particular reasons I stopped writing and now I've begun again, I add to the secret note.
Now I can write with no weirdness between us.

Here's the thing of it: I'm home, home on the range in Oklahoma. And it would be my unending pleasure to recite the condensed version (and I'll categorize the events by place)
Provo: Mayhem and foolishness of packing, finals and good-bye breakfasts, which was at once tender and pull-your-hair-out/
Salt Lake City: Cotten girl time! Magazines, movies, shopping and laughing, laughing, laughing was the order of the three days we spent together.
Provo: More and more packing and yes, falling down the stairs. I can't make this stuff up, people, I fell down the stairs with a box of dishes and the most precious bird salt and pepper shakers and the box of my beautiful and fantastical Magic Bullet. I just missed a step and KABOOM . . .ow. And my RA came out and I said: I fell down the stairs and she said: well yeah. And that's that, quite frankly. And a whole herd of deer prancing across the street to the baseball fields.
On the road in Utah: lots of dead deer on the side of the road ( I counted 7 and then became depressed and had to stop). And a picture of "The Hole in The Rock."
Colorado: llamas, llamas, everywhere. The good people of rural Colorado love them a good llama. Don't ask me why.
New Mexico: Antelope . . .have you ever seen antelope?
Texas: cows and a stinky feed lot and the giant I-40 cross and an American Idol Happy Meal toy . . .buy one, experience it, there are almost no words to describe the hours parody-games played in Ace as we passed pasture after pasture .
Oklahoma: delicious sweeping plains, lots of wind and the sweet feeling of almost being to a private bathroom, lovely shower, glorious bed and (almost most importantly) to get out of poor Ace, who had a hole in his muffler and was beginning to drive us to lunacy.
Now it's onward ho to summer! And what a comfortable and lovely feeling!
Oh and I watched all of PR in one day and in one word: FIERCE (ps stay tuned for thoughts on that)

I've finished ALL my finals in two days, I had breakfast from Scoreboard Grill with two of the most precious people I've met here and I've packed eight boxes of nearly all the stuff I'll be leaving behind, my momasita just came into town and it was a lovely Spring day until the dust began to be blown all about the valley. Enough said, yes?
Oh and I have only goldfish, saltines, green beans and Quakes in my cupboard.

Yesterday I had the strangest sensation. I was sitting in the rehearsal for my cello recital and I was listening along with 12 other cellists and 1 pianist to a beginner play Minuet No. 2 and I was looking at the boy next to me, the girl across the room, the pianist and my teacher and I thought: wow we all look so different, it's amazing how diverse our genetics are. Um. . . hello?! Do you ever just sit and think: fascinating aren't they, those genes, all those dominant and recessive alleles. Yeah, me either. . .well at least not usually. I can't even tell you why that came to mind, I mean it is pretty awe-inspiring that in with just a few variation here and there, the building blocks that make us all relative make us different. Crazy . . .crazier that it came to mind. I'm not even in a science class this semester or anything. Oh well, I'm sure something triggered me to think that . . .jut don't ask me to tell you what.
And today I left my umbrella in the Nelke, don't you just hate leaving things behind? I sure do hope it's still there after class today . . .I like that umbrella very much and an umbrella is an excessively handy thing to have about.
Oh and it is very cloudy today, but I don't mind too much because I am wearing bright aqua tights and my hair is looking especially Gingerific today.

Goodbye March, goodbye sunshine, hello April and hello snow. I spent the weekend in Salt Lake, really Sugar House (if you're thinking: mmm sounds sweet and tasty, you are neither the first nor the last person to have had this thought cross your mind) and it was glorious, phantasmagoric even (but that's a lie, because it was not, in fact ghost-like . . .but ever since I learned that word from Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, I can't help but indulge myself in the incorrect use of it every now and again). But Erin and I did what we do best: talked, looked at magazines, talked, shopped, talked and watched movies oh yes and talked. I love going to visit her because the weekend is completely school-free, dorm-free, roommate whom you've never lived with before this year-free and last but certainly never least and never ever to be underestimated in its power: Provo-free.
This particular weekend was especially magnificent because 1. it was Conference Weekend and 2. we watched a movie I love but never get to see. I basically hate stupid-humor movies, you know stuff that's the redunka-stupid roll your eyes and become excessively frustrated type. But there is one movie that has always warmed my heart that is in this category, I didn't even have to ease myself into liking it (as with A Christmas Story, which I do love now) I liked the first moment I saw it and that movie and I am only slightly embarassed to say is Bubble Boy. I nearly pee every time I watch, I basically can't help myself. It's so redunk, but simultaneously precious and dare I say a bit tender. I'm not even ashamed to say one of the reasons I lalalove this movie is the fact that Jake is Bubble Boy and the way he says: I'd rather spend one minute holding you, instead of a lifetime wishing I could (or something to that effect . . .you get the point) and it's pretty well hysterical. So there you go I am willing to freely admit it: My name is Caitlin and I LOVE BUBBLE BOY!!! And I don't really even want to be rehabilitated, so there.
Oh and there are only 2 more weeks of classes/finals and only 11 more days until my Mommy comes to fetch me, what joy is mine!

Here is something I have learned: people live by rules. I know you think um, duh, the law, school rules etc. But I mean that people live by a strict set of personal rules they make for themselves sans the what other people tell them to do. Oh outside sources influence these rules, but they don't dictate them, I suppose you could call them habits, but I think they go beyond habit. And I'm not talking about morals either, these are the quirky things we make ourselves live by because we think it's what makes a good life or what a pretty life looks like in our heads or because we're all a little bit crazy (as well as racist, which this piece is not,in fact about). . .I'm not judging this process, heck I even do it, I just think it's amusing. So next time someone tells you that they hate rules and think they're dumb, you can just smile at them because 1. that's a rule 2. all people set some kind of boundary for themselves. Let me just tell you about some:
My roommate has a rule that she can't eat the same thing twice in one day. It's nearly an impossibility, so when other people do it she has an issue over it (and she tries to hide it . . .but when you live with someone for almost eight months it gets hard to miss what they're really thinking, but maybe that's just me). Today my other roomie told her to have peanut butter toast, but she can't because she had it for breakfast, I'm pretty sure she physically can't. A rule she lives by.
A girl upstairs hates celebrating her birthday, she says it's fake and she hates getting gifts because she never gets what she wants. She doesn't like the attention, she lives by a rule: to keep the spotlight off of herself.
My darling friend has a strict code of conduct when it comes to color and especially color pairing. No black with brown (this would be The Big No-no) no navy with black (because you'll look like a bruise) no white bottoms (skirts, pants, and dresses) when it is cold/snowy/wintertime. Nothing too psycho or neon paired together, because you'll look obnoxious and heinous (which really is true, isn't it?). This rule is directly related to her dressing rules (if people have no other rules, they most definitely have these, most lists are extensive and have very complex and subtle 'but' clauses and appendices lettered A-Q, these are the most fascinating of all personal codes of conduct to me).
I guess one of mine is that I wear socks to bed when I spend the night at a hotel. I never ever sleep with socks any other time, but I basically have to in a hotel . . .ok if I'm going to be completely candid, sigh, I don't (generally) go barefoot at all in hotels, except (albeit reluctantly) in the shower. But wearing the socks to bed is beyond legit, and not . . .really not, it's not a raional thought, but it's how I feel. So here: I have a fear that I'll be particularly active in the night, make the bottom sheet come loose and then I'll feel the hotel mattress . . .ICKY. There's is just something about that idea that makes me just get the ever-lovin' heebie-jeebies. So there you go, a wierd thing I live by, quite staunchly, I think if none of the above illustrated the point I was trying to get out in the universe, my rule did it.
Oh and I have a set of three precious and perfect little ringlets bouncing directly next to my right ear.

Do you ever see someone and think: wow we'd be a good match. I mean he's typing on your mac book, you have a Mac Jacobs. He's sitting in the HFAC, looking equal parts artsy and studious, hello . . .you too. And he's wearing these well-fitted jeans a really great pale blue shirt with a coral tie and a vest with converse and you are looking equally adorable in your boho dress, leggings and fetish necklace. That happens to you? Yeah . . .I can't imagine anyone being so stalkerish, perhaps you ought to get a hobby, or actually work on that homework you have sitting in front of you.
Oh and I bought yogurt-covered raisins at Wal-Fart yesterday.

Greetings to you on the Monday Morning. I have already misspelled my name Cailtin about 4 times in the past 20 minutes so it's already panning out to be a real winner. Here's the thing that can make an icky day: forgetting to but gum in your backpack
ickier: forgetting your nalgene at the homestead ickiest: forgetting both the gum and the nalgene at the homestead. Now try and beat that, you're parched and you have stinky breath, it's a killer. But never fear, none of the above have happened on this Monday Morning. Except I did forget my 5 fire cinnnamon gum in my desk drawer. I can just see it sitting in there, right next to the huge stack of MAPS, my ELF chapstick and the package of M&Ms Mimoku gave to me of a Saturday. Nevertheless, there is sunshine in my soul today because I ate oatmeal this morning and I remembered to bring nalgene full of cool Britta-filtered water. No sea monkeys for me, thank you very much. My eyelids are very droopy, it is a hard thing to go to sleep and then prematurely wake up and then go back to sleep and then run around all night long trying to get all of the necessaries into your tornado shelter that you think will protect you from an impending earthquake.
Oh and I wore my hair all the way down for the first time ever yesterday and I don't know if it'll ever happen again.

Wednesday, better known as Thursday Eve (oh it's not better known by that title? It's just me that uses that term? It's whateva, just humor me). Thursday is an interesting day, a bit poopy and a bit glorious, there you go. I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkel, there are few men in this world that can sooth the soul quite like these two can and make you think that the '70s was probably the single coolest decade ever. However much they make me think this, I'm not entirely convinced that it is a truth. To be sure, the '70s were very influencial, pretty darn groovy and dare I say it: rockin' but there are so many other times that are equally as inspiring and interesting. Probably minusing the middle ages, ancient Rome/Greece and maybe even the Renaissance and a titch the '80s (but I can't totally hate on them . . .even though there's plenty to hate on . . .come on, I was born in the '80s, hence something good happened during that decade for me). I pretty much am fascinated by every time period and especially the fashions and the cultures and I guess everything but the politics. I can't much sink my teeth into politics, no matter the time.
Ok earlier I was really hot, so I put on my Spring/Summer matching pajamas with the blue stripes. Now I'm cold and it's time for a costume change: flannels with the hippie Russian nesting dolls. Oh dear me.
Oh and I've shaved my legs four times in the passed two weeks . . .let's just pause for a moment here, people.

It's the day after the day of love, as my roommate refers to it. How are we holding up? Are we a bit blue, or perchance a bit green from the unholy amounts of delicious chocolate and not-so-delicious conversation hearts that we've eaten? I personally made cupcakes, chocolate because everyone knows that's the only kind worth eating (especially if you're using a mix . . .)with pink and white heart sprinkles. Basically it's what one might refer to as quote-unquote: festive. Besides the fact that I felt domestic making them, even if it was a mix. I tried to make the frosting do this oh-so appetizing and oh-so chic twirly thing on the top of the cupcake . . .success eluded me for the most part. As did sightings of unattractive stuffed animals . . . partly refreshing and partly disappointing. What's a Valentine's day without cheesey cheap pink polyester playthings? I tell you now: nearly nothing. But here's what I don't love: calling Valentine's Day V-Day. MEOW!!! Not so much, I say, not so much. That's what we might call an uncomfortable word. Unlike James Marsden in 27 Dresses, but there is next to no time to talk about him, although I could go on and on about our date last night. But alack and alas class calls and I must go study Piaget's pre-operational stage of cognitive development.

Oh the internet is being painfully slow . . .so much so that I had to quit safari and use firefox and so much for it being swift like unto fire or a fox, or even a fox on fire, more like the speed of a really, really slow glacier, or an ancient ancestor of the fox frozen in this glacier. I don't love not using safari, mostly on account of the fact that I like how the toolbar looks, it's much more aesthetically pleasing, don't ya know?
There is one thing that happens here and that is snow, or threaten to snow. So I guess that's two things. Nevertheless I have accepted this and I even enjoy it a bit . . .except when the snow blows into my eyes and pummels my poor eardrums. This is when I say: snow, you are just playing dirty.
Here is what I like to do: look at moccasins on ebay. I'm not sure what my new-found fascination is with this particular type of historical footwear. Maybe because it reminds me of summer. And why should they? Who knows, maybe for the same reason Cat Stevens along with Simon and Garfunkel do . . .pretty well inexplicable, yes?
Here's what I don't like: The Dumpster and cleaning checks, but mostly The Dumpster . . .or maybe cleaning checks, it just depends on what day you catch me on. But you can generally count on my dislike of these two things and bananas . . .that is a constant in my life. I'm a fairly predictable human being in that way.
Last night Dad texted me that in Brazil they often ask dinner guests if they would like to hop into the shower before the meal. At first you think: strangeness, as well as: rudeness! But I've been seriously pondering this and I conclude that this is a custom I could really get behind. Now I don't mind being dirty (let's talk about how I would never set so much as toe near the showers during camp . . .I wouldn't even change clothes, except undieswear and pjs) but I also value cleanliness. It would kinda be like washing your hands before dinner (which people don't even wash their hands after going to the bathroom, so washing before a meal is just asking way too laboourious task). So my thought process is as follows: if you encourage people to take a quick shower before dinner, they won't. But they will wash their hands, and perhaps their faces . . .but probably their faces. They'll be like: teehee the host will never know I didn't actually wash my entire self, I'll just run the shower and then wash my hands. Voila! you've just used people's inate laziness or (more optomistic) dislike for using other people's showers to your advantage! You don't have to worry about Freddy touching all the rolls, because his hands have been washed. It's brilliant, I know, you don't have to tell me two times.
Oh and it's sad when transition lenses don't fully transition once inside a building of normal lighting.

Sometimes a girl feels loved by her school, like when she gets a Monday legitly off of school. For example, my campus honors Martin Luther King Jr. Day . . .and President's day, but no other bank holidays are important enough. Let's not even talk about Spring break (what is this foreign concept . . .oh you meant a break from school spanning a week usually used to alleviate cabin fever before the home stretch of the semester. Outrageous . . .this idea is most definitely for softies, which we are not). The one solace I have is that I'll be home for almost a month before the other peons who got a month for Christmas and a break for Spring are still being schooled. Ah no matter . . . today is a blessed day a day of great rejoicing, homework-doing and frivolity.
Oh and it snowed buckets and buckets last night.

(first off I misspelled 'whether' in my last post as 'wether' I'm slightly ashamed at missing that poor little h that separates a person that can spell and one that was a spelling bee drop-out, which, consequently, I am. It's out . . .I didn't even want to be in the spelling-bee so I spelt my name when the teacher asked me to spell 'mutton' I knew how to spell it, I just didn't. the funny thing is that some kids thought I had gotten the word right . . .ah the rising generation).
Real issue of business: it's incredibly cold and I'll let you have three guesses as to what is falling from the sky in a peaceful, yet somewhat hateful way. If it's taken you this long to guess, you've obviously been living somewhere hot and secluded for a very, very, very long time. Welcome to winter semester, where it always snows but it's never Christmas. I think the snow is so pretty and this is one of the problems with it: you can't completely despise something so beautiful, so I don't. Besides, sometimes I feel Scadinavian and this game of make believe slightly helps to buffer the ickiness and general dread I feel when it starts to snow . . .again.
I woke up this morning, very early . . .before dawn even considered cracking, after a night full of disturbing dreams. It was one of those play/movie dreams I have where my life turns into a play or I'm just in actor in the play and I know it's a play but I can't see the audience. Last night's was the former. It was a party that I was at and there was a man with two sets of eyes stacked one right under the other. He only opened his bottom eyes right before he Sweeneyed someone . . .you know, slit their throat with a razor blade. The wierd thing is that as scary as he was (and believe me he was plenty scary) you could tell that most of his face was put on by makeup . . .and yet I was terrified of him. I think this is linked to the fact that our Sondheim musicals class is finally having a Sweeney Todd night and I pretty much had an irrational and fairly poopy day yesterdtay. I had to wake up to watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for one of my classes . . .let me say that when you're up until midnight finishing the worst paper of your life, your laundry refuses to dry and half your clothes are completely wrinkled and the kitchen is in disarray, your suitemate loses her phone in the overhead light of her bedroom and then are expected to wake up for a 6:45 am showing of a movie . . .let's just say that tolerance for some of the over-acting (mostly on the part of the actresses) runs low and I couldn't sensor what I said . . .it was as if I had never gone to sleep. I am proud to say that I caught the humor even in the strange early-morning time warp that became the JSB auditorium.
Oh and I refuse to fall victim to procrastination ever again . . .I pretty well hate my life when I do.

It's the end of the first (or the beginning of the second, depending on how you look at your week: wether it starts or ends with Sunday) week of round of Caitlin's Freshman BYU year. Good news is all my classes are at a respectable or above-average insteresting-ness level. But often times workload correlates directly with interesting-ness, which I'm fine with (heck, I'm at school, what else am I going to do besides school work . . .not a whole lot comes immediately to mind, at least during the days).
But here's how the real story goes: yesterday I came in from being in the library for no small increment of time (which is always a productive thing for me: Saturday library time is always excessively handy for me, I get to gettin' really easily [especially after a nice workout] and I can go for a long time . . .anyway, this is not the story you've come to hear). I walked into the apartment, trying to think of what I would do with my time in the apartment before the appointed hour of a dance I was going to attend. My thoughts were unceremoniously interrupted by the stench that hit my news. There are almost no words . . .the first that comes to mind is MEOW!!! and then: 'what the crap-crap is that?!' Let me try and describe to you the unsavory aroma that bombarded my olfactory glands. I have pondered this long and hard and this is what I've come up with: really, really, really fake cheese (like the kind on popcorn or really cheap cheddar snack mix, or the stuff in boxed mac and cheese) deep fried in a vat of nastey oil (the fried smell was more of a feeling, the idea that this synthetic cheddar had been fried) with just a subtle overtone of carmel (this was a come-and-go feature of this smell). Now this sounds like a strange, unreal smell to you . . .but I wouldn't lie to you . . .cross my heart: honest to blog (oh I adore Juno!!) this is what the whole apartment building smelt like. Upstairs, downstairs, in our icky back hall (that p.s. looks like someone was either murdered or had some life-threatening or at least some reputation-threatening [perhaps peeing right in the middle of the square of carpet repeatedly, because 10 feet either way to a bathroom is just too far to go] in that 4 square-foot space). I couldn't escape it. My stomach was empty from my studying-fest, so actual puking was strictly out of the question (besides the fact I hate the act) I was resorted to dry-heaving, covering my nose, swooning, whining and drenching our apartment in various preventative air-freshners (these actions were in various mixes of occurence, not in any specific order and not necessarily nor unnecessarily in the afore recited order). In short, I cannot imagine what someone was making to produce such a stench and it's a bit like a bad car accident or the bloody parts on house: you want to see it , but it's gross . . .so you don't . . . .but then again, you really do. I'm afraid it's some sort of old and beloved family recipe that makes the girl feel as if she's home again, whereas I felt like I had reached a whole new, unimagined level of Dante's Inferno.
Oh and I worked out 6 times this week AND went to a 4 hour dance, where I only stopped dancing 3 times.

So here's the thing: I think I am experiencing a mild case of beginning-of-the-semester-depression. Nothing huge or clinical . . .no, just a bit ho-hum to have left my favorite place on earth (home) and some of my favorite people on earth. Not to mention that all my lovely friends are still on holiday, while I trudge to my early class on the other side of campus in 10 inches of snow. I'm not casting any dispersions on my campus, snow or even the huge icey patch that was once my shortcut to the crosswalk, I just am a little degradatated at getting back in the saddle again. I love going to class, I even hazard to say that all my classes are going to be enjoyable and interesting this semester, but I don't want to start taking tests and having papers due. But I guess . . .no I know that it comes with the territory, every rose has its thorns, as they say.
My current condition might also have a little something to do with the writer's strike that drags on and on and on and on . . .it might be indirectly affecting me. Heaven knows I'll go psychopants if this little tiff as it were gets in the way of new episodes of Pushing Daisies airing. Anyway, senseless prattle. Pardon me, I think this is what happens to a body when he or she reads about research methods for 2 hours.