farewell for now

Yes, it's true. The time has come for me to hang up my hat when it comes to this here blog (and really the hat I'm wearing is super cute so I'm not actually taking it off...k?).

Please, do not cry. I'll be back someday! But it will probably be a different blog altogether. I just don't know when.

Reasons why I'm ending all of the fun:

• Lately I've felt like blogging is a chore. I've kept this blog since I was in college, and that's kind of what it was for in the first place. My life is a lot different now, and, welp, I hate to say it, but not as interesting. Also I don't have a camera and I'm pretty sure if I did you wouldn't want to see pictures of my cubicle. I don't even want to see my cubicle. You know what I mean?
• Blogging is awesome and it's also the worst thing that ever happened. Because I read so many amazing blogs and then I start comparing myself/my life to all of these other amazing people, and I get kind of sad about it. And I feel like whatever I blog isn't going to "measure up." Yeah, I know, it's silly, but it's a real thing when you enter the blogosphere (p.s. that is a weird word via the internet). So I need to take a break from it for awhile. Blogging shouldn't feel like a competition, ya know?
• I'm getting tired of blogging the same old things. I've lost my creative juice. Also it kind of feels pointless to blog when nobody is really reading it (p.s. I can't tell you're reading it if you don't comment. kthanksbye). If you want scruff, go here. If you want foresty pictures, go here. If you want delicious displays of food, go here. Oh wait, that's my other blog that has 800 followers somehow! That blog is kind of like my "dream life." And that's where I'll be hanging out from now on. 

Peace out girl scouts (er..and boys scouts, if there are any reading this, which I highly doubt, unless Caleb is reading this, then hiiiiiiiiii Caleb!)

neglected

It's about to snow and I'm not sure how I feel about it, mostly because I don't feel as if I have sufficiently relished October. On the other hand, I remember the exact day it began to snow last year in Rexburg...October 9th. I had a soccer game. Key word is had. So we're slightly ahead of the curve this time.

I found this post from the olden days and laughed until I cried. Ellie you perfect Asian 7-year-old you.

I discovered Beach House. What in the what, why has nobody forced me to listen to them before now?

This postcard was basically written by me.

Work has been pretty lame this week, I don't know why. Gloomy weather just makes me want to stay in bed and read all day. I still have four unfinished books by my bed. That's what renewing your library books ten times is for, am I right?

I contemplated abandoning this blog because um, that's what I've been doing anyway, but if I officially abandoned it then I wouldn't feel obligated to post for the zero people that read this. Negative Nancy, go to sleep.

Oh btw I also started using Spotify (I know, so 2010). What can I say, I liked it when Pandora just made me a playlist and surprised me with good music. But now I can rotate some good tune-age whenever I want. Right now it's Desert Noises every live long day.

The election is in one week, gah. Remember when this happened? I'm glad it will be over because #1, election night gives me anxiety to the nth degree and #2, people will hopefully stop posting all of the political craziness on facespace. f'reallllllls, I don't know how much more mud slinging I can take. Brown is not my color when it's...dirt. Kbye.

FYI I also saw the new Bourne movie and I have decided that a bearded Jeremy Renner is an attractive Jeremy Renner indeed. Go see it please or I'll...have to think of a good threat later because srsly, I just took two advil and we all know what medicine does to me.

p.s. I'm only slightly embarrassed that half of my photobucket library is scruff.
up next: some more riveting blog posts, I swear. I don't have instagram but I will get you to comment!
p.p.s Star Wars 7 is happening. I don't know what to say except what in the junk. Do you remember the last 3 they made? DO YOU?!

when the universe speaks...

napoleon=the universe

the doll=me

I keep waking up in the middle of the night for no reason. Is this the universe's way of telling me I'm never going to figure out my life and therefore should deprive myself of sleep in order to figure out said life? I mean really, that sentence made no sense. None. Zilcho.

Conference was good. I cried through most of it. Buuut f'reals. I did. And I'm still crying about it. Is this the universe's way of telling me that every talk was "made for me" and if so I really need to shape up my life? Ack.

October is meandering on by, which I like, because it's my favorite month (don't know why this is suddenly a "blogger cliche," I'm preeeety sure it's a human cliche and therefore not a cliche at all). On the other hand, it means there's only two whole months left of 2012 and two whole months until I am no longer 22, and oh gash, that scares me for no reason. The universe is ignoring me on this one. I get no signals.

Stuff that kind of stresses me out right now: people who scream at me when I'm trying to help them get free money, people who swear at me when I'm trying to help them get free money, people who scream in general, the snail trail I found on my carpet...inside my room, my hair and its never ending need for cuttage, the byui alumni emails I keep receiving because they make me sad and also I'm not down with being called an "alumni" yet, and the presidential debates on TV. Sometimes I think I would rather drink a whole huge can of grape juice in 10 seconds than hear everyone talk argue about politics. For the love. Also, every techonlogical thing I own is broken: my car radio, my iPod, my camera, this computer (been in-viru-fected for a year). Hence the lack of pictures these last few months which actually have to do with me.

Stuff that only stresses me out a little because it affects the rest of my life: the GRE and why does such a test have to be the deciding factor of the rest of my life? also, all my TV shows are back on all at once and I honestly don't have time to watch any of them. So mebbe I will just have one TV show from now on, and it will be Arthur (yeash, the cartoon).

Stuff that doesn't stress me out but it should: the current state of my legs (I'm at the halfway point between "okay" and "sicknasty"), the fact that I still don't know what to be for Halloween, this book I am reading about death and heartbreak and oh gash it really shouldn't be read before bed but I do it and why am I not having nightmares? Also, my perpetual state of singlehood should probably stress me out as well, but it doesn't. It did when I was in Rexburg, though. Then again, Rexburg is the place where all of the diamond store advertisements go to make war on single women. I kid you not.

Well, this has been pretty weird. And I have a headache. Probably from venting all of that stuff onto you. Man, aren't I the best? Betcha can't wait until next time. Maybe I will throw a scruffy picture in just for good measure, so I don't lose all two of my followers (hi parents!).

beautiful person alert

soon it will be cold enough to build fires

october=bonfire season

lately
I've been writing more and more letters, to strangers and friends alike. It revives me after a week of sending hundreds of flat, lifeless business letters. Today I got one in return, waxed seal and all. Thanks, Brit. A reply is forthcoming. Did I just say forthcoming? Yeah...yeah I did.

My favorite band broke up. Maybe if we're lucky Justin V. will retreat to the woods and write another amazeballs album, which will come out in like 10 years. Complete with a free canoe on the side.

I picked up my guitar...and harmonica. And tried to channel my inner Bob Dylan, but it didn't work because #1, I don't have an afro, #2, I don't have one of those super flattering headgear harmonica holder things, and #3, I'm not Bob Dylan. Oh yeah! Hey, if Cate Blanchett can pull it off, why not me? Don't answer that.

=

?!

The radio in my car started to work again one morning, but this is only half good because every time I go over a bump in the road, the station changes itself. There are no numbers on the dial, so I have to guesstimate where all of the good music is. In case you were wondering, 75% of the roads in American Fork are "under construction" and have been for the past 20 years. So you can just imagine the music smorgasbord I experience every day without really wanting to.

My fellow compadres at work gather at the lunch table every day and discuss the weirdest things. I think I'm going to start making flow charts, because the things we get off topic on are ten levels weirder than weird. You would understand if you talked to the people I talk to 8 hours of every day. I'm not kidding about these conversations, though. Everyone else in the room will not-so-subtly stand nearby and eavesdrop, then laugh out loud, totally blowing their cover.

Example of today's conversations: owl pellets, seafood, large creepy fish, the fish farm in Oregon, Costco, Costco hot dogs, PMS, the people at Social Security offices who deserve to have their eyebrows shaved off, etc. I bet you could find a common thread if you really tried.

I started to knit again and oh gash, it is the hardest thing anyone ever invented with two sticks. I'm pretty sure drumming would be easier. But drumming does not produce beanies, an item which someone like me happens to need copious amounts of. Dang, that was a terrible sentence.

Stuff I am currently craving: (and by currently I mean 24/7/365 but now it's legal) 

dead leaves everywhere

pumpkin

scruff. always.

Talks you should read if you want your mind blown: this, this, and this. Sha-bam. 

Songs you should listen to if you want your ears to be happy: 

this video..kill me dead.

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?