Halloween Costumes

I love Halloween like a fat kid loves cake. And when I was a child I was actually pretty creative when it came to Halloween costumes. I got this gene from Cathie, who I swear to you made Crayola Crayon Halloween costumes for me and each of my three sisters in 1989 and had us march up and down the street together like a box of crayons.

I was blue. My sisters were purple, pink, and orange. Cathie had the foresight not to make a "white" crayon costume and then have all of the neighbors wonder why one of the McCann kids was allowed to dress as a Klansman for Halloween.

Fuller House Came Out and It's Even Worse than You Imagined

Where to even begin.

When Netflix said they were producing a season of a Full House reboot, we all quit our jobs to make sure there would be no distractions in our lives when it was released. There has never been, at any time since that crocodile gave birth to the first human baby*, a more exciting announcement than the one that told us that Full House was coming back.

Yes, we all knew it was going to be terrible. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Nobody actually thought this was going to be a good show. We all saw Full House in the 90s. We see it on tv all day, every single day. There is basically a channel devoted to Full House syndication. Every one of us saw at least a flash of one of the show's scenes just today while we flipped back and forth between Love It Or List It and Naked and Afraid. Just how terrible Full House was and is has never drifted far enough into the recesses of our minds to allow nostalgia to fool us into an alternate reality wherein this show wasn't gag-inducing.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

So I made a joke earlier this week about making t-shirts and a bunch of you actually seemed interested in this so I learned how to use the Internets and created a very scientific poll at the top right of your screen for you to vote on your favorites among those discussed in the comments. I may try to force Matt to design some of the more popular ideas. I'll try to bribe him with cheesecake. AND GOOD COMPANY. You can select multiple answers, so please take a second and do that.

I have been asking so much of you lately!

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

How I spent my Valentine weekend. Hashtag mud mask. Hashtag loneliness. Hashtag nudity. Hashtag NSFW. Hashtag NSFL. 

Not Far from the Tree

Recently I was in the car with Matt and Wade. I was ranting about how my mother will reluctantly agree to allow me to bring something to a family dinner party but then when I show up, I find out that she made her own version of my assignment "just in case" and then mine inevitably gets sent home with me, untouched. I was complaining about how she doesn't trust me and how offensive this is. The car got quiet and then Matt and Wade said some variation of, "um . . . that's what you do to us."

I am my mother's son. I admit it. For the last four birthday parties Wade has offered to make the cake and each time I have stepped in and made it before he had the chance. It's a control problem that I inherited from Cathie. One that was proudly displayed at family dinner on Sunday.

Cathie: We are very excited to have everyone come for Thanksgiving this year.

Eli: That reminds me; we need to make food assignments.

Cathie: Ok. I think Krishelle should bring [something complicated], Krisanda should bring [something complicated], Micalyne should bring [something complicated], and Eli . . . um . . . you could do . . . corn? Like in the microwave? Do you know how to do that?

Eli: Are you kidding me, Cathie? Corn?

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

[Please come to The Porch this Saturday night in SLC. Jolyn promises to give a 25-second hug to anyone who wants one. Find info here.]

I think I am the most tired any person could be. This long week is finally coming to the end for me after a few very intense and long meetings and one significant court appearance this afternoon for the sweet client who passed away earlier this year. There is a 92% chance I will fall asleep tonight and stay in bed until November 21st. I'm going to pass out a sign-up sheet for you each to take turns stopping by to feed me and switch out my bed pan. I'm handing it to The Suzzzzzzzzzzzz first and expect she'll proceed to pass it through all of the Strangers in order of height and age.

It is the very least you people could do. Don't make me have to lecture and guilt trip you. I have a very large picture of Jesus ready to show you if needs be.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

The crew at Arches, with Delicate Arch in the background.

Jodi

Last week was John Michael's birthday so we decided to throw him a Halloween-themed birthday party at my house because I refuse to treat any of my 30-something-year-old friends like they are any older than 9.

I decided it would need to be a small intimate gathering and quickly invited Matt and Wade. John Michael moved to Salt Lake City earlier this year from some place in the south where they give everyone two first names and legally require you to call them by BOTH names even though the rest of us get by just fine with only one. Because he's newish in town, he's still assimilating and getting to know people.

I know that he's made various friends while living in SLC, but I don't really know any of them.  Matt and Wade were really the only two people I knew John Michael knew and so they were the only two people I knew to invite to his birthday party.

I was having some birthday party planning anxiety leading up to the big day because who has ever heard of a good birthday party with only four people. But I didn't want to invite people John Michael didn't know because that seemed inappropriate too.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Happy weekend, one and all. I'm lying on the floor. Eating candy.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

The dining room in my old house is ever coming together.

Birthing a Mattress

I've basically been sleeping on one of those Flintstone beds for the past few years. Just a very uncomfortable slab of bumpy rock. Except, worse even. If I so much as contemplate rolling over in it, the mattress squeaks so loudly that it sets off car alarms in India.

If you've ever hear car alarms going off on the other end of your customer service calls late at night, it's probably because I blinked in bed in Salt Lake City.

Y'all. I'm an insomniac. I think this is one of those chicken/egg things because I'm not sure whether I'm an insomniac because my bed is from 1745 or if my bed feels like sleeping on top of a pile of rocks because I'm an insomniac and therefore unable to get comfortable anywhere.

Various friends have conducted aggressive interventions with me over the years, demanding that I upgrade to something called "a grownup bed." They do this as though I still sleep in a race car bed, which is kind of offensive but OH MY GOSH NOW THAT WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT DO THEY MAKE THOSE IN ADULT SIZE?

Water Heater

I went for a run this weekend even though I made a solemn promise to all of you and to the universe that after Ironman Boulder I would never exercise again. But as it turns out, my body be doing crazy things lately.

I had a hard time figuring out what was going on at first. I felt this unbelievable amount of anxious energy, like I could run up a mountain, crab style, like the Exorcist girl. Also, I've been insanely hungry. ALL THE TIME ALWAYS. If you guys saw how many jumbo bags of peanut M&Ms I've gone through in the last 14 days you would probably start petitioning to have me on the next season of My 600 Pound Life.

I knew this couldn't be menopause because I've never gone through puberty. Naturally, then, I assumed that this was all because of disease and so last Thursday I took 5 minutes and jotted out a very simple will.

Mr. Ollie Pants will go to Matt, Jolyn gets my wig collection, and everything else goes to Bob and Cathie. I also gave very strict instructions to Young Wade to go through my whole house and get rid of all the "not that we know what that is, Cathie" paraphernalia before anyone can come over and start going through my stuff. Like, for example, my slutty outfits.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

I got a haircut today NOT THAT I EVER NEED A HAIRCUT BECAUSE MY HAIR NATURALLY GROWS TO THE PERFECT LENGTH AND THEN STOPS. Anyway, I walked the four blocks from my office in the middle of the afternoon to Ashley at Array Salon (shout out!) and it was eleventy thousand degrees so by the time I got there my whole back looked like I had just gone down a water slide at a disease-ridden water park.

Well, they make you lay down at this place I go to so they can wash your hair before they cut it, which is good because if they didn't my hair would literally never get washed. But today it was mortifying because when I got up from the bench, there was a big sweaty wet mark where my back had been and homegirl had to clean it off. 

You guys. I'm trash. And I'm running out of places I can still go to.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

Matt's birthday party.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Now that Ironman training is really, truly over for the first time in several years, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself anymore. I mean, there's eating and TV, of course. But I don't know what order to do those things in.

I did, however, spend my evening yesterday peeling and chopping mangoes with Anna and Emma because Craft Lake City is baaaaaa-aaaaaack. We will have our usual schyzophrenic Polynesian/Argentinian food stand on Friday and Saturday at Gallivan Center downtown. If you're attending the free festival, (I think it's free?) please stop by and say hi. Tami misses you.

And until then, your Pictures and Distractions:

I somehow got locked in the room I was staying in at Sam's house. I sought help, unsuccessfully, from Young Wade until I finally had to take the door off the hinges using objects I could find in the room. Note the time stamps on the above texts.

Ironman Boulder, 2015

Young Wade and I stayed with my childhood best friend Sam who lives just outside of Boulder. I dragged Young Wade out of bed at the witching hour on Friday morning so we could make the eight-hour drive from Salt Lake City. If Young Wade ever speaks to me again after the number of times I required him to be awake before most people even got to bed this weekend, he shall be given an automatic Nobel Peace Prize.

On Friday and Saturday we wandered to and fro, checking into the race, packing the many gear bags, and dropping things off at the transition areas for the Ironman that would begin bright and early Sunday morning.

Bob and Cathie rolled into town Saturday afternoon after texting me 300 times throughout the day to ask whether I was staying calm. Hashtag worried parents.

The questions were fair. I have been less-than-calm in the last few weeks, although I’ve tried desperately hard to fix this. As you know, Ironman has been a very long and often terrifying and devastatingly disappointing process for me.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Young Wade and I shall set sail for Boulder, dark and far too early Friday morning. Years of anticipation and preparation, disappointment and frustration, all culminate to this weekend. My stomach is full of butterflies and my legs are bouncing with nervous adrenaline.

It's been an emotional week as I've reflected on the path to this point. I'm tired and changed in ways I hadn't anticipated when I first set out to prepare for an Ironman in 2011, totally ignorant and without an accurate sense of the respect this process was due. But I've carried on, and gained that respect, at a great cost, and now I'm pretty proud of myself for paying it.

Feel free to follow my progress on Sunday on the Ironman Boulder website. I'm number 1574.

Until then, enjoy some Pictures and Distractions:

Mr. Pants, majestic. 

Pioneer Day Catastrophes

I hadn't planned on working Friday because PIONEER DAY. The pioneers would not want me to work on the greatest holiday of all time and I'm respectful to their wishes because I was raised right. Hashtag Bob and Cathie grinding their own wheat when I was a child.

But then Thursday night happened. A number of work emergencies popped up and kept me on the phone until quite late. And, as though work emergencies have no respect for bonnets and the Utah state song, they ate most of my Friday as well.

I sat, in my home, working for most of the day, stressed out, filled to the top with anxiety. I texted a coworker to ask whether I could enter the witness protection program to hide from my job but he replied that it's already too full of lawyers and they aren't accepting any more at this time.

The evening came and a handful of friends showed up. I had agreed to host a Pioneer Day party for the non-Utah-born-and-raised heathens in my life so I could teach them a number of pioneer songs and help them understand the glory of Tami's birthday. I put the work down. We cooked absurd amounts of food and enjoyed ourselves in my backyard until exactly 10:25 when Young Wade made a comment that changed everything.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Matthew Pants went to his home state of Mississippi (or, as he calls it, "Miss'ippi") to remodel his house there and sell it. He left Mr. Ollie Pants in my enthusiastic care. Mr. Pants and I have had our ups and downs this week.

Ups: Every moment in which we have gazed into one another's eyes in gentle longing affection.

Downs: 3:00 AM barking at nothing in particular on Wednesday night followed by two hours of dropping toys on my head.

Young Wade tried to take him from me one night so I could "sleep in peace." I acted like he was a social worker trying to take my baby from me. You guys. I love this animal too much.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

With Mr. Pants!

Eli's Swamp

I know this story is going to sound exaggerated but I swear to you it is not. You guys. I'm a mess. My life is a mess. The decisions I make? A mess. The ways in which I attempt to correct the messes I make? A mess.

This weekend I was exhausted. The Boulder Ironman is now somehow only a month away. Hashtag what the hell. Hashtag I don't deserve this I didn't do anything wrong. Hashtag dark magic.

Because it is somehow right around the corner AGAIN, I have been frantically trying to cram an entire year's worth of training into every single day because I am terrified. I shouldn't be as terrified as I am. I've been training extremely hard. But as you may have gathered if you've read Stranger before, Ironman and I have sort of a rocky history and I'm not really convinced that it isn't intentionally trying to kill me.

So, because of the above-mentioned, I got up every day last week before most of you even went to bed three days before (don't think about that too hard or I'll lose all credibility and then I'll have literally nothing). I woke up early for excessively long training runs or swims or bike rides and by the time the weekend hit, I was no longer a normal functioning adult human. And that's probably how the below happened.

Musical Cars and Meth Labs

At any given time there are eleventy cars in my driveway. This is mostly because at any given time Young Wade owns eleventy cars. I'm not kidding you about this. He has this hobby where he buys cars at auction, drives them for a hot minute, and then sells them.

I have no idea whether this is profitable or whether it is worth the hassle, but he seems to enjoy it. So much so that I get eleventy texts from him every single day with pictures of vehicles and a series of emoticons I have no idea how he accesses because nobody has ever shown me an emoticon manual and BACK IN MY DAY if you wanted to learn how to use something, you had to look at the manual.

Nowadays, everything is just intuitive for the kids. You go buy a phone or an i-thingy or a mac-a-something and there are absolutely no instructions on how to use it. The kids just pick it up and immediately know how to navigate the universe on their touch screen. WHILE DRIVING.

When I was a kid we found out that the library computers had this unbelievable technology where you could tap on the computer screen to navigate the book selections. So we, the children of the '90s, BEGGED our respective Bobs and Cathies to take us. This was only a few years after my entire family gathered around an answering machine one evening, excitedly, to watch Bob nervously record the outgoing message. Then we called Aunt Diana and asked her to call us back to see if it worked and when it did we JUMPED up and down and screamed.

Jurassic World: Is America Getting Dumber?

You guys.

I saw Jurassic World this weekend. And oh my gosh. YOU GUYS.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US?

Seriously. Are we getting dumber? Is America getting dumber?!

I know the entire Internets are already full of people complaining about things and tearing apart whatever you love. And I know that I don't need to be yet another one of those voices of hate. But I'm going to be right this minute. Because I sat through all 247 hours of Jurassic World this weekend AND THIS IS MY ONLY OUTLET OK?!

I would warn you that this post is going to be a spoiler for the movie. But I don't think it actually is a spoiler. Because a movie has to have a plot in order for one to spoil it. And Jurassic World HAS NO PLOT.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Last night I returned home from work to find Young Wade curled up in the fetal position on the couch, clammy, and possibly moments from death. He looked like someone with Typhoid fever on the pioneer trail and I wondered for a moment whether we were going to have to leave him behind.

Eli: Have you done anything today?

Wade: Siiiiiiiiick.

Eli: Laaaaaaazy.

I hope the Department of Child and Family Services doesn't take him away from me.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

I made a cheesecake from scratch for Young Wade's birthday. And it was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

Wake-Up Call

Mr. Ollie Pants stayed at my house this weekend. This was a wonderful thing. Mr. Pants hasn't slept over for many weeks and I have had major withdrawals. Like a heroin addict who suddenly has to quit cold turkey because he ends up in the slammer.

NOT THAT WE KNOW WHAT HEROIN OR ADDICT OR THE SLAMMER OR COLD TURKEY OR SEX IS!

As usual, I scooped Mr. Pants into my loving arms and the two of us fell into one another's souls, forgetting that anyone on Earth existed besides us. We spent the next two hours exactly like this:

Photo shamelessly stolen from Matt.