hi, I'm mckenzie and I'm addicted to making playlists

in honor of the autumnal equinox, my friends:

the suburbs//arcade fire

i and love and you//the avett brothers

re:stacks//bon iver

le loup//le loup (fear not)

iron and wine//each coming night

grizzly bear//reprise

chairlift//i belong in your arms

james vincent mcmorrow//if i had a boat

justin vernon//sweet, sweet magdalene

janove otteson//forget about me

the beatles//dear prudence

damien rice//one

sean hayes//a thousand tiny pieces

the lumineers//stubborn love

jerry douglas + mumford and sons + paul simon//the boxer

feist//graveyard

fleet foxes//bedouin dress

gregory alan isakov//that moon song

blind pilot//oviedo

jose gonzalez//down the line

the best...

just gonna leave this here.

...when oldschool music like Fleetwood Mac comes on my Bon Iver Pandora station. So random, but amazeballs at the same time.  Also, I would like to know how they came up with those band names.

...when your computer is possessed by the devil after only being alive for 4 years. Honestly, I just need to suck it up and buy a Macintosh. Why is that always the answer?!

...dark mint chocolate. oooh yes. I almost wish I didn't possess any. Then again, I'm McKenzie, and dark chocolate is part of my eternal identity (I think).

...Having a week of studying just my favorite chapters in all of the Book of Mormon. We're talking 2 Nephi 32-33, Helaman 5, Ether 12, Moroni 10, Alma 37. Ahhh yeah.

...not getting any sleep the night before. This is only good because the next night (i.e. tonight), you know for sheeeezy that you are gonna be out like a broken lamp before the sheets are even over your leggies.

...online shopping. I've always been a big fan of that there invention, just because I'm an introvert and I dislike going to malls and being overwhelmed with all the people and all of the clothes and ahhh. Yeah, Forever 21 is no place for people like moi. The only downer is paying for shipping (I'm talking to you, Urban Outfitters).

...the little patches of red on the mountainside by my house. those patches of red are getting even bigger, and it makes my heart grow bigger and bigger, and pretty soon it's going to beat right out of my cheeeeeeeest. Is that a song? No? Well, it should be.

....reading old emails between Niki and Chelsea and myself. Dang we are hilarious. Honestly, most of the time we spoke in "inside joke" and abreev and all kinds of crazy codes which only we understood. Sigh.

...titling my journal entries. Sometimes this is a drag, and I stink at it on purpose. I'll write something intentionally lame like, "I Am Tired Today, Therefore Deal With It." But today..oh man. Today's title was thus: "I Wanna Be the Gun to Someone's Holster!" I hope you know I didn't just come up with that, but stole it from a cultured hip-hop artiste. Yes indeed.

...pictures of men's style that show up on the internets. I didn't really know that "men's style" existed for awhile, because let's face it, growing up most of the boys I knew dressed in Hollister (get your flashlights everyone!) or wore their pants way too low. But let's not open that can of worms! Anyway, now I see pictures like dis and I am pleased. Very pleased indeed.

somebody get me a human who wears these clothes (and has that scruff) asap. okay? okay. 

confess or don't, but either way you ate a lot of apple pie.

I service society by (not) blogging

1) I just wrote the title of this post as if I was talking to myself. Which I pretty much am doing anyway. Isn't that what a blog is? I'm too tired to get into the metaphorical-ness of that last statement.

2) Ellie made a birthday card for my dad, and in it she wrote a little poem. It said something about a hippopotamus, which I didn't really get, but this is Ellie we're talking about, so it doesn't really matter. But then she wrote, "Make a birthday wish, and make lots of wishes, and wish that you will get locked in a freezer full of ice cream!" Now I know 100% that we are related.

3) We all know that I love pumpkin, and the first boy to make me a pumpkin treat will be my number 1. But I have realized another weakness when it comes to fall dessert...apple pie. Remember last fall when I ate like thirty slices and almost had cardiac arrest 10 minutes later? DO YOU?

4) I go through musical phases and sometimes I really can't stop listening to a certain artist and it gets almost obnoxious how heavily they will rotate. For example: Justin Vernon is all over this page. It never ends, my friends.

5) I used to be really terrible at talking on the phone. For serious, there was a time when I would rather do a backflip into the Grand Canyon wearing nothing but a scrunchie than talk on the phone. Okay...that was unnecessarily graphic. But the point is, I would cry (actual tears, but no mascara yet because I was still a youngun) when my mom handed me the phone. Now I do it all the live long day, and I am a professional. I'm also a professional typist, post-it-noter-maker, alphabetizer, and over-the-phone-accidental-therapist. Awesome.

6) I've been going through this awful phase when every time I look in the mirror I go, "blurgh!" It's like that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's when Holly G. looks in the mirror and says, "I've got to do something about the way I look!" Although she is Audrey Hepburn in real life, soooo I'm not sure I can totally feel for her in that moment. Back to me. This morning my hair was being my hair, i.e. acting like it didn't care about the fact that I wield the brush and hairdryer! So I showed it up, and parted my hair on the other side.

You guys. Why didn't anyone tell me about this secret sooner? Whenever you are not feeling the hair, just move it over. Whaaaat?! Yeah, it's that simple. Shazam.

Also, can we talk about how one of the great ironies of life is that you can fix your hair while watching TV/knitting a scarf/eating pasta simultaneously, without a mirror, and it looks perfect, and then you go to do the same thing the next day for reals and it looks terrible?! I mean, why? P.S. ignore that run-on sentence that just happened.

7) I went and bought myself two new beanies. In a color besides yellow. ALERT THE PRESSES.

8) At first when my iPod died a few weeks ago, I thought I was gonna die too. My journaling got really bad, because I used my iPod to fuel my pen. But I've gotten used to the silence again. And guess what? I like it.

9) Sometimes I get homesick for the most raaandom places. Like the WinCo in Idaho Falls. Or the 2nd floor of the McKay Library. I never thought I'd get homesick for that place. Ha! Especially after making these super special memories there: number one, number two, and number three.

10) My secret wish is to have a cabin/house thing like the one in Dan in Real Life and go there every autumn so I can relish the whole season without having to think about anything else but the leaves falling and the smell of wood burning and the golden October moon.

are ya kiddin' me?

can we talk about how it's september already?

don't be sad, scarecrow, it's almost October! yess!

GUYS. I completely and utterly remember April..and I remember those two graduation ceremonies which were kind of excruciatingly long, and I remember being starving, and also not wanting my picture taken but not being a great position to avoid that.

My ability to form sentences has greatly diminished since I got that diploma in the mail (classy, right?).

Anyway, the point is, the summer has evaporated along with all of the other moisture in Utah. And it's all gone up in flames now...also like Utah.

Sometimes I get sad about summer ending, but not this year. This summer was a tough one. Plus, it was super-stinking hot. I'm not a fan of heat. I'll take rainyness and even a little snow over a scorching day. Then I can wear Mr. Yellow Hat anytime I don't feel like doing my hair (everyday, btw).

Now it's officially time to wear boots and scarves, and I did my duty and wore both today. Okay, so it wasn't that smart considering the temperature climbs to about 80 degrees by midday. That's how September is. I'm impatient for October 11 months out of the year. Or maybe I'm just impatient to stop shaving my legs...such is life!

Tessa Matthews asked me to give her the haps. So Mrs. Matthews, here ya go:

Ellie came into my room yesterday with one goal in mind: to get money from me. If only my cash flow was as abundant as the number of tweets about Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Oops, did I say that out loud? So back to Ellie. She came into my room and said, "Hey Kenzie, I really need some money. And if you don't give me some I'm gonna be really mad." This girl knows how to fundraise. There's a reason so many people bought girl scout cookies from her this summer, and it's not because of her cuteness. Ok, well maybe a little bit. Observe:

My job is kind of hilarious. I'm getting pretty good at it now. The first week was stressful up the heeeeezy because I got a huge caseload and oh man it was way overdue and fjskljf;sajf;a but I got it figured out now. Mostly. And people seriously crack me up with the things they demand of me. For example:

"Hi, I was just wondering where my check is?"
"What check? You mean for disability?" Ha..oh man. Then I have to tell them their "check" ain't comin' for at least 18 months. Sorry charlie.

Oh and my favorite one:

"Hey, how come Social Security is sending me paperwork? I thought you were supposed to fill it all out." "Um, no I can't fill it out. Only you know yourself and what you do every day. You have to fill it out."
"What did I even hire you for then? What do you even do all day?" *Facepalm* TIMES A THOUSAND.

And then sometimes, the clients get all TMI up in my grill and I cannot handle it. So I try really hard not to react while I'm on the phone with them, but as soon as I hang up I have to bust a gut. They think that me, being their case manager, must know every single detail of their disability. And I mean every. detail. Sometimes they send me photos. At which point I must poke my mind's eye out.

Today is September 12th. So now it will be less than a month until I see this wonderful person otra vez:

Can I get a holllllllla?! Yes I am pretty excited. I'm even trying to speak gangster. Which comes not-naturally to me. Because I am 100% Caucasian. The End.

and now, I have compiled a photographic list of reasons I miss Rexburg right now:

the building on the hilltop.

the view from my room.

Willie Wednesdays (on Thursdays)

el taco bus

Reesey, my favorite reading center student ever of all time

enough snow to make an actual couch, ahh yeah

friends like this

how can you not love her?