Chicago

I recently flew out to the windy city for a quick trip to see what it's all about.

Windy? Yes.

Cold? Yes.

Frightening? Slightly.

We arrived into the city slightly late (because 10 is totally late these days) and decided to meet one of our friends on the other side of town at a club. This involved discovering the Venmo metro card system (like a magic debit card!), hopping on a creaky train, and jetting through the cold night. Eventually we made it to the part of town dubbed Boystown (which could totally be the actual name, but who has time to look up those things?), were out for a little bit, and headed back to our hotel.

Let me just preface by saying that upon public transport, I generally don't find it necessary to talk to people. Ever. Never ever.

Place: Chicago subway car.
Crowd: Sleepy people, old people, homeless-looking old people, homeless-looking sleepy people. Please choose to reorganize that in any order you with and feel free to add more adjectives. It's like I built ad libs right into this post! Now it's a game and literature!*

Apparently, the man across from us decided that this was a fine time to strike up a conversation.

"Did you guys see the game the other day?"

I had no idea to which game he was referring to, but Jake did somehow. They started chit-chatting back and forth while I sat there mortified because you don't talk to strange subway people, Jake. Maybe it's my small state upbringing, but I swear you don't do that. Jake went on to tell this man about our night and when Boystown was mentioned, the man perked up a little. "Oh, Boystown? Yeah, I was just there the other day, if you guys want, I can..." where he lifted his hand in a DRUG SMOKING MOTION, "hook you up."

"Oh, we're ok, thanks." Jake replied.

"You know, you guys staying in a hotel? Wanna invite me up for a drink?"

NO.

"That's OK, we're just going to go to bed," Jake said politely.

Now I'm picturing this man following us back to our hotel room to touch things on the mini bar** and ruin our lives!

We got off the train and I walked a little quicker than I would have normally.

"Why did you talk to him! He offered us drugs!" For some reason, Jake did not understand that we don't talk to strangers. "Everyone in this town just wants to offer us drugs!" Which was appropriate since we walked past a man who mumbled something under his breath and it was DEFINITELY DRUG RELATED BECAUSE WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?

I tried not to let our first night be a downer on the rest of the trip, so I didn't base this city on a couple hours of drugs and debauchery.

The rest of the city proved to be a little more to my taste. We walked up and down Michigan Ave. looking at the shops, ate deep dish pizza (because holy Hannah Montanna, that is a lot of cheese. They are serious when they say deep. Like, deeper than your soul and all your friends souls.), saw the pier and rode the ferris wheel, went out to a couple clubs, saw and took pictures in front of the ever so magical shiny bean, and spent time with our friends at a comedy festival.

What comedy festival? I can't recall the exact name, but apparently it is one of the biggest gatherings of comedy troups (groups? troupes? gaggles? Eh.) in the country. We arrived at the theatre and our friend told us that we were going to see the group named Fuct. Yes, fuct. F-U-C-T. Like duct tape, but fuct tape.

I walked into the theater expecting SNL-like comedy sketches and waited to be pleasantly entertained as the lights dimmer around me in the blackbox. Next thing I know, one of the girls in the sketch re-enacting a man's dream has her shirt off. I glanced around and realized I wasn't the only one slightly surprised. Boobs. Just...boobs. The rest of the show continued in a similar fashion, one man trying to eat a doughnut off his junk, another where two men dick jousted over a girl in the audience, and lastly, a man lighting his dick on fire.

"What. Is. This. Show." I managed to get out. All I could think about was how these people had actual thought this up and has to rehearse it with one another. They had to see each other naked A LOT. And dangerously. With fire. FIRE. What was this city?

Our next show had 100% less nudity, but included 100% less talking as well. The men pantomimed all their actions and at one point asked me to move my seat. I, not being one for audience participation (This isn't dinner theater!), just shook my head. They eventually got me to move one seat, but the rest of the night all I heard about was how I had given these men a death glare. Some people are just so dramatic.

We ended the trip with a quick stop to Wrigley's Field, finally finishing off our deep dish pizza (because it took about 3 days to eat it), and regular airport drama.

Us: I'm here for my flight:
Flight people: Your flight has been delayed...4 hours.
Us: No one mentioned that.
Flight people: Here is airport money. Go be happy now.

It wasn't the end of the world (and who can be mad that we had airport money?), but it made our final hours a little frustrating. In the end, we still made our flight back to our salty lake where there were 100% more clothes people and way less dicks on fire.

But who really knows what is happening at your local theater down the street.





*Calling this literature is probably a great overstatement. Kind of like saying you're a "photographer," when you just have 150 followers on Instagram.

**I accidentally lifted something on the mini bar to just look at it and Jake grabbed it and threw it back down like it was that statue in Indiana Jones and we were about to be crumbled by some giant boulder. Apparently now they magnetize it and if you and if you lift it, THEY CHARGE YOU. What is this madness? I just wanted to read the ingredients!

Time to Boil Some Chicken

I've tried to get on this health kick for the ten millionth time in my life. Usually these diets end with me sitting on the floor twitching while I reach for a bag of sun chips and the powder from a doughnut laces my mouth. Then it ends with me ending up at a weird party and getting paid to eat doughnuts and possibly injecting jelly straight into my veins where I end up getting my arm amputated.

...or that could have been someone else.

The point is, my stupid sweet tooth really just needs to be ripped out of my mouth to motivate me to eat "better." (Since it's not like I'm scarfing down ten McBetes every day, mostly I just cave to sugar)

I even updated Beth the other day while I was waiting for some chicken to boil so that I didn't just shove Junior Mints into my mouth. Because a diet isn't a diet unless everyone knows about it. 

10:18: I'm waiting for my chicken to boil

10:19: I found some cake

10:19: I found whipped cream

10:20: I ate them both together

10:20: Don't worry, I looked at an apple

10:21: I'm balancing whipped cream on a fork

10:21: I'm balancing whipped cream and cake in my stomach

10:21: Whipped cream is just as good out of the container

Does anyone know how to locate your sweet tooth/cover chicken in chocolate?

The Hottest of Pots

Last night I drove down to Provo to have dinner. I knew that we were having dinner, but I didn't really knew where until I was about halfway down when I got the text for the address:

Four Seasons Hot Pot and Dumplings.

A wave of nostalgia hit me as I prepared my colon for the fiery poops that would surely ensue.

For those of you who don't know, hot pot is a Chinese cooking method in which they basically leave a giant pot of boiling broth on the table into which you dump all of the things you want to cook (beef, chicken, unidentifiable meat, veggies, unidentifiable veggies, noodles, etc.). You can usually also decide to have the pot divided in half, in which half is a regular broth, and the other half is a broth frothing with foreign spices glowing bright red that begin to eat away at the pot itself. Since it's so hard to decide which, you get to have both (Which means you also get to decide which kind of poop you'll have later. JUST KIDDING. Because you only get fire poops). *

Some really fancy hot pots have people that come out and do the noodle dance for you. No, not the PB&J otter noodle dance, but where they swing a giant noodle through the air to stretch it out and then subsequently throw it into your pot (Here if one if you want to see it). It's a frightening process because sometimes they pretend to try and hit you in the face. 

I walked into the restaurant and it was like a little piece of China had been plucked away from the homeland. Or, you know, a Chinese family opened a restaurant in the middle of a large college city. It was humid and smelled like, well, every restaurant in China (which can best be described as spicy with a hint of raw meat). There was the familiar bar of foods: raw meatballs, raw shrimp, raw...blocks of white stuff--you know, all the essentials. I scooped up what I wanted and plopped it into the bubbling pot.

Since the four of us at the table had all been to China at one point or another, we started to play the, "Do you remember when...?" game. 

"Do you remember when mushrooms grew in our bathroom?"

"Do you remember when that taxi driver tried to charge us 100 quay to go two blocks?"

"Do you remember when wouldn't pay for our internet for days and decided that indoor heating wasn't totally essential?"

Oh, I remembered. While a lot of things didn't happen to me personally, usually some kind of variation did. Part of me expected that after the dinner ended, I would hop onto a bus filled to the doors with people and a baby peeing on the floor.

"Do you remember when you ate a popsicle that had red beans inside it?"

It was funny; while most of the memories were seemingly negative things (like a man throwing up on me), they were somehow slightly endearing in my mind. They were those little gems of my life that I had experienced in a foreign place that most people don't understand unless you've lived there.

"Do  you remember the skinned animal faces at walmart?"

While I had a lot of hard times in China, I had a lot good times too. I saw amazing sights and met some of the kindest people. Mostly I learned how to try and laugh at a situation that looked pretty grim and shitty. There were days when I putting a smile on my face as I walked out the apartment building into the smog and past the smells of the sewer coming from who knows where, was all that got me through the day. Now I get to look back at that accomplishment.

"Do you remember when our toilet spit up sewage into our apartment?"

Out meal ended about the same time a new couple had entered the restaurant and were preparing to ready their ingredients in the pot, looking a little confused.

"Just dump it all in." I leaned over and told them. 

They followed my instructions only to be chastised by our Chinese host. He descended upon them telling them that certain items should go in first and what goes where and blah blah blah. I tried not to make any more eye contact with them seeing as how their first Chinese experience was ruined and I was the culprit. 

"Do you remember when you ruined that couple's dinner?" 

I do. Really I just wanted to pat them on the back and reassure them that this was the authentic experience. Taking advice from a stranger, dumping everything in, and hoping for the best.

No, really, just have a try. Have a try.

*If you're wondering where the dumplings are in this story, I was too. We asked our host where the dumplings were (since they were so clearly explained in the SIGN OF THE RESTAURANT) and he informed us that his aunt had moved back to China and she was the one who made the dumplings. Apparently, she had left no recipe, taught no one else, and had decided not to change the sign.

The Holy Cheesus Be Proud

I've always believed in true friendships. Usually, I find that they revolve around some kind of dark humor, slight sacrilege, and a love for food. Beth and I have a strange bond, especially when it comes to our cheesus.

The holy cheesus watch over us and the marinara be proud.

Cheesus crust, I can feel hell opening up right now.

Swimming and the Good Wife

I've recently become a bit obsessed with The Good Wife, the lawyer show about the wife of a disgraced politician. That's seriously oversimplifying everything, but you can Google everything and spoil it for yourself.

Now, when I say obsessed, I mean it's a little bit overboard on the amount of time I spend thinking about this show. Primarily, I try to identify with the main character of the show, Alicia Florrick.

I like to identify Alicia as an independently strong woman. She sticks up for herself, doesn't take crap, knows when it's OK to have a few too many glasses of wine, and make fun of herself. A little strangely, I relate in a lot of ways, because I'm obviously a Chicagoan housewife turned kick-ass lawyer due to a public indiscretion with my husband. WE'RE JUST THE SAME, OK.

Well, mostly I've tried to emulate Good Wife status when I'm down in the dumps. Good Wife spent a good chunk of her life putting her lawyer-ness on hold to raise her children. While she definitely never regretted setting aside the law for her family, it seemed like there was something missing from her life. Then due to unexpected circumstances, she found that missing piece and her life was then just a show about how great being a lawyer is and how she only wins her cases and she never gets wrinkles. HA, if only (except for the part about the winkles). 

Good Wife finds that once thrust back into being a lawyer, her life is hard in a completely new way. She has to juggle home and work life, maintain great hair and outfits. and be confronted with moral dilemmas on a daily basis. While her name implies that she is nothing but good, Good Wife also finds herself in sticky situations because she occasionally decides to be--NOT SO GOOD. 

But that's what I like about her. While I want to heroine-ize her*, I see her being a person. Good wife messes up. I mess up. Good wife overcomes obstacles. I overcome obstacles. I think you guys might have missed it, but we are basically the same.

I recently found myself in a bit of a rut. I filled this rut with countless hours of The Good Wife, pizza, and trying on my entire closet at late hours of the night. Everything was feeling a little sluggish, so I decided to take mental inventory of my life. I was exercising, working, seeing the people I cared about, so what was the issue? What would Good Wife do?

While it was easy for me to look into Alicia's life as to what she should do (Run for the State's Attorney's-ship, duh!) because I'm the omnipotent one in this situation, it was a little more difficult to look at myself. In fact, it was damn frustrating.

I was doing all the things I deemed correct on my checklist:

Working: Check
Eating: Check
Personal Fulfillment: ...Crap

I wasn't exactly sure what that even meant to myself at this point, which was a strange feeling. I wasn't unhappy, but I wasn't exactly sure how to fix the feeling that lingering feeling. What would Good Wife do? So, I took my power stance, put on my metaphorical power suit, and stepped out the metaphorical door and into my metaphorical courtroom. For me, I determined I needed to start swimming again.


Swimming for me had always been a release. It was really the first (and only) sport that I excelled at and taught me the meaning of discipline and hard work, not to mention that weird friend bond you have with your teammates. So I took my power stance, put on my literal swimming suit, stepped out the locker room door and into my real life swimming pool.

I AM GOOD WIFE, HEAR ME SWIM.

First thoughts upon jumping in:

"Fuck, it's cold."

"Why did I used to enjoy this?"

"If I suck in more water, I can clear out my sinuses."

"If I suck in more water, I won't have sinuses."

"What is Michael Phelps?! A wizard?!"

"I'm going to pretend to go my normal speed, but I'm actually racing you, the guy next to me."

"OK, I still enjoy this."

I told myself I was Alicia at this point. While still being pretty rusty, I just needed to get my feet off the ground and jump into the deep end (literally, two points for puns). This wasn't going to be easy, but giving up would be more disappointing to myself than getting the engine going again. Not to mention the giant wave of nostalgia that I was getting. The general feeling of weightlessness, the taste of chlorine (yes, it tastes strangely good, OK?), and the tightness of your lungs until you get that breath of fresh air; it was intoxicating.

The day my cap broke was the end of an era for past Ryan. Poor cappie had been around for years and seen me through quite a lot, but it was time for something new...to squeeze the life out of my head.

So I've continued this for a bit. Keeping my swim gear in my car in case of emergency (the great flood, you know?!) and actually utilizing my gym's amenities. Although the routine doesn't change a lot, it's been weirdly relieving to add this to my days.

Now I'm one step closer to Good Wife status...but substitute an advanced law degree with a Bachelor's from Southern Utah University.

*That means I want to shoot her into my veins.

Anxiety

As a kid, people always described me with words like, "shy," or, "quiet." I would actually say that a lot of people still describe me as that way; the kid who would rather sit in the front of the classroom, but only talk occasionally. That kid who spins his thoughts over and over, until he can pick the one that seems right for the situation.

Anxiety is a sneaky little bastard who has hung out with me most of my life.

I'm going to go back to my Mormon roots for a second and pull out the well-worn technique of looking at a dictionary and explaining what anxiety is. If you would all turn with me to your DSM-V handbook and look up Social Anxiety Disorders:

A.  A persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. The individual fears that he or she will act in a way (or show anxiety symptoms) that will be embarrassing and humiliating.

B.  Exposure to the feared situation almost invariably provokes anxiety, which may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally pre-disposed Panic Attack.  

C.  The person recognizes that this fear is unreasonable or excessive.

D.  The feared situations are avoided or else are endured with intense anxiety and distress.

E.  The avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in the feared social or performance situation(s) interferes significantly with the person's normal routine, occupational (academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, or there is marked distress about having the phobia.

...Etc., etc., etc.

If I was going by the book, I would now open up a dictionary and read you the literal definition of anxiety (Something along the lines of how anxiety is more related to social exclusion whereas fear is related to actual physical harm. I feel the need to make that difference.). I would now break this apart piece by piece, until my ten minutes were up and I could sit down and relive myself from all the pressure of giving a talk in church once a year. But I'm pretty shit at being a religious person, so I'll ask you to picture a shaggy-haired kid with large round glasses in the fifth grade. That kid is me, in case you were wondering.

Fifth grade Ryan was quiet. Teachers liked him, parents adored him, and lots of kids found him a little strange. He was very selective about who he chose to be his close friends, which resulted in him only having a few he was comfortable being himself around. One day while at his friend's house, Ryan got more rambunctious than he usually did because he was comfortable. He was being loud and saying most things that popped into his head without everything going through the filter first. While in the middle of running through the house, Ryan remembered the name of a scary movie he had been thinking of all day and subsequently yelled the plot to his friend when out of the corner of Ryan's eye, he saw his friend's mom. The music was loud, kids were running and screaming, and here was Ryan screaming morbid things like murder across the room. It didn't look good. At least, to Ryan it didn't look good and that was all that mattered. He went home feeling rather despondent and the thoughts kept spinning and spinning: what was she going to think of him now? This noisy rambunctious kid--talking about murder! He must be no good. He must be weird. He must be a bad seed. After that, Ryan didn't really like seeing his friend's mom very much.

This little anxiety monster has followed me around for most of my life. There are days when he is really quiet, and there are days when he will not shut the hell up.

"Remember that time you walked into your professor's office and because you stared at him too long he hates you forever?"

"Don't forget about the time you walked into class late, no one will forget that."

"Everyone still remembers that awful campaign slogan you made for jr. high class elections."

"That homeless man remembers the time you farted near him".

"You asked for that day off and now your boss wants to fire you."

I spin these thoughts over and over again, each time making sure that they grow until it's the only thing I can think about, Then there's anxiety, sitting on my shoulder getting fatter and fatter as each thought becomes a slight obsession.

"You can't win in that race and when you lose no one will forget."

"Your friends only tolerate you."

"You're going to fail that class, flunk out of school, and end up alone."

I am ashamed to admit that sometimes I seriously acknowledge these thoughts. Dammit, I really am going to end up alone with a shitty job and no name for myself. I'm sure that even my cat will leave me. Well, he'll probably just eat me. 

They stick to my brain like everything to a George Foreman grill.

There were days when I felt like someone had made my brain into a washing machine full of bricks that pounded on the edges until I felt like I was going to burst.* It was usually during those times when I distracted myself with music, video games, and books. This way, I'd be able to wrap myself up in something that was outside of my own head so I wouldn't become to physically and emotionally exhausted.

Within the past several months of my life, I've had a lot of...grownup life things happen to me. I say grownup because I always joke about how "grownup" I am with my friends (hint: I'm not) and these were things I had never really to prepared for. I had to make a very serious relationship decision coupled with some serious family issues that had arisen. One left me feeling hurt while the other left me in a very cold disposition. 

...Looking at it now, I guess it wasn't a terrible combination for the situation.  

I had gotten very stuck. I stopped blogging because I felt like trying to find things to joke about would almost be like lying since I didn't really believe anything that I tried coming up with (Believe me, I tried; and in all honestly my wonderful and terrific writing probably would have suffered if I had chose to share it). I distanced myself from any social network that I had and instead tried to focus in only on work.

Each and every day I was digging myself deeper into my own little anxiety hole.**

And it sucked.

Then came my epiphany: It was me.

I was the one who decided what I got to do next. As simple as that was, it hadn't really dawned on me before to just stand up against myself and do something. New empowered Ryan started not putting up with shit. New empowered Ryan gained a strange new confidence that he hadn't really ever seen before. New empowered Ryan put himself out there and firmly decided what he wanted. New empowered Ryan only talked in third person!

I got to be the hero of my own story. I got to be Han Solo when he decided to take initiative for saving the galaxy. I got to be Indiana Jones in his last crusade (but nothing more because there definitely no more movies about Indiana Jones after that). Apparently, I get to be Harrison Ford, and I will roll with that.

While I still didn't blog, it was more out of just serious neglect than crippling anxiety (like your first ten goldfish..minus the crippling anxiety). While I've still maintained my distance from social networks, it's less out of weird validation and anxiety, and more from just not needing that around. The endless spinning brought on by over-thinking; not speaking up and wishing I had, or speaking up and wishing I hadn't significantly slowed down. In fact, it made this weird turn around where I did a lot of talking with little regret (except the time I decided to engage a homeless man). I was getting the support I needed from the people who mattered in my life and I didn't see this change going away any time soon.

Now, this post has been something of a struggle. It's been edited, read, re-read, re-edited, completely changed, and left alone to simmer for a very long time. Every time I looked, it changed a little; leaving old parts because I liked them and some serious erasing because why would Ryan five minutes ago ever say something so ridiculous . Now I'm just comfortable with the whole thing.

There are still days when the little anxiety monster still likes to hang out on my shoulder (e.g..: parties and surprise gatherings), but he's gotten a lot more quiet. That, or I've tried to stop listening. Either way, I'm comfortable with that.



*Even as I write that sentence, I have a slight twinge of anxiety from fearing that people will think that's a horrible analogy.
**Do I have enough analogies and metaphors for anxiety in this yet? Because I also worry that I may be using analogy and metaphor incorrectly sometimes, which is why I included both right here because I am shit with grammar and just the English language in general. Now I worry that grammar isn't even the right word.

Dear Girl Above Me

Dear girl above me,

I know we've never met before, or ever really seen each other, but I assume that we both know that the other exists. I'm sure you've seen me passing out of the driveway, or carrying groceries into the door, and I don't blame you for not saying hi (I mean, I haven't said it either, so we're all good on those grounds).

You have a dog, which is super great! Our dogs even have a lot in common sometimes! They're quiet, respectful, and don't bark a lot. I forgot to mention that my dog died a few years ago (so she's not as lively as she once was). Your dog, on the other hand, seems to be full of life and so do you! I get the talking in a weird baby voice to your dog and having it chase things. I also realize that I used to do that with my dog outside (You know, when she was alive.) so that people indoors could maintain some peace and quiet. I'm sure our dogs would have even gotten along because I can tell that your dog likes to talk (bark) all the time! For instance, at 3am the other morning, she just wanted to let the whole neighborhood know where she was and you decided that a good run around the house might help. I think we really bonded at that moment.

I also get the whole "spousal problem" thing! I mean, if I was home alone, I would talk as loud as I could on the phone to my friend complaining about things he was doing. He left the TV on again!? Ugh, he is just the worst (I assume.). But here's where you lose me: Every time your so-called hubby returns home from wherever he goes during the day, you two seem to have a fully functioning wood shop up there. It would seem to me that after complaining on the phone for hours at a time about this person that you wouldn't be able to haul heavy lumber around the house together, but you two seem to make it work! (I guess that's what marriage is all about, right?)

Us below you also think that your furniture is probably great where it is. To us, it sounds like you've rearranged it about every day since you got there and it has to have reached some sort of feng shui. Also, if it's dead bodies (No judgment! We've just speculated that loud thumps followed by long silences could be some kind of "Silence of the Lambs" type scenario, but we don't want to be nosey.), please drop them on a mattress or something.

Have you ever heard of the hit television show, "American Idol?" Every song you've sung to could definitely bring you fame and fortune, *hint hint.*

Maybe we could be friends, but our sheer proximity really prevents me from doing that right now. There are days I want to knock on your door and tell you that I can hear you screaming at the TV, but I don't want to make you feel embarrassed. I'll also admit that it's a little nice pretending like I know your life because I can hear every little move you make.

I will also definitely take the instance of when you threatened to throw up on your significant other so that he would leave you alone and apply it to my daily life. That was a metaphor, right?

Sincerely,

The guy passive-aggressively complaining about you on the internet

P.S. We can still hear you faking sex.