The Holy Ham-Grenade of Antioch (and also Mean Girls.)

If you met me at college, you have probably heard all about The Holy Ham-Grenade of Antioch. There was, in fact, a casual Facebook contest dedicated to naming my creation (shout-out to Mason, who came up with the title as it stands.). If you don't get the reference, I suggest you watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail immediately. It's the only movie I consider to be on-par with Mean Girls in terms of quotability. (Also, watch this. And this... hilarious.)

Okay, enough about my favorite movies. This is the part where I tell you what the heck a Holy Ham-Grenade actually is. It's a delicious creation that brings cheese, ham, and apricot jam together into a toasty, melty union. Most people don't quite understand how the jam could possibly be good, but I promise you... it's perfect.

I know you want one, so here's my official recipe:

The Holy Ham-Grenade of Antioch

• 2 Slices of White Bread
• 2 Slices of Cheddar Cheese
• 2 Slices of Ham
• 1 Generous Spoonful of [hopefully homemade] Apricot Jam (do not use other jams.)
• Butter
• A Frying Pan
• A Vast Love for Delicious Things

1. Heat the frying pan with some butter in it. Be reasonable in the amount of butter you use. You want a nice toasty sandwich, not a deep-fried mess. 

2. While the butter is melting, assemble the Ham-Grenade. Building from the bottom-up, it goes like this: bread, cheese, ham, jam, ham cheese, bread. 

3. Place your Ham-Grenade in the frying pan. Toast at medium heat, just like you're making a grilled cheese. Make sure both the cheese and the jam get melt-y and delicious. You're obviously going to need to flip it... I advise you implement your common sense when deciding how/when to do that. 

4. When toasted to perfection, remove to a plate. Cut your Ham-Grenade diagonally before partaking. 

5. Partake. 

You guys, I am so proud of this sandwich. Here is a picture of me eating it:

As you can see, anyone eating a Holy Ham-Grenade is vastly more attractive than anyone not eating one. HHG have also been know to raise student GPA's by .67 and raise student date-ablity by approximately 37.2%*.

Anyway, hope everyone's having a fantastic Wednesday.

x,
   m


*These results have not been tested or proven by anyone at all.

Hurricanes

I remember a church dance I attended shortly after turning 14. It was the kind of dance where boys asked girls to dance, and the girls were always supposed to say yes the first time a boy asked them.

I was having a great time dancing with my friends to Livin' on a Prayer, but as the song ended a familiar tune began to fade in. The piano into to You and Me by Life House started to play, the cue for all the girls to scatter so they could look lonely enough to get asked to dance. I did just that. Much to my delight, an older boy wandered over to me and offered his arm. He was at least a full foot taller than me, so once we began to dance, my neck was craned up to him at an uncomfortable angle. We started to chat bout who knows what, blowing through the easy topics quickly. We ran out of things to talk about before the second chorus. As we swayed in uncomfortable silence, I wracked my brain for things to say.

"I like your tie," I said. I'm pretty sure my voice cracked. He graciously avoided laughing.

"Thanks... So... if you were weather... what would you be?"

We looked at each other. What a stupid question, we thought in unison.

"I'd be... a spring day?" That seemed safe. Everyone loves spring.

"Cool, me too."

Then, mercifully, the song ended. I never talked to him again, but I wish I could. I need to change my answer.

You may have heard of heard me talk about John Green before. He is my favorite author, hands down. His novel Looking for Alaska, literally changed my life (I'll tell that story someday). There's a quote in the book that replays in my brain at least once a day:

If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

I've learned a lot since I was 14. I've learned how to cook, clean a bathroom in less than 20 minutes, break-up with someone, fill awkward silences, and properly apply eyeliner. I've learned that I actually enjoy action movies, and that Mean Girls may be the best movie of all time.

But more than that, I've learned that normal is boring. When I was 14, I thought that being "normal" or "average" was somehow the key to being happy. I tourtured myself over that for years, changing my clothes, my hair, the way I talked, my sense of humor, all to meet some imaginary standard of what a "normal person" would do.

Drizzle is average and boring. No one writes news stories about drizzle. There is nothing at all spectacular about drizzle. It almost seems apologetic as it falls.

But hurricanes... Hurricanes demand attention. They are big and powerful and do whatever they want. Never has a hurricane apologized for itself, never has a hurricane held itself back simply to appease other people. Much like the proverbial honey badger, hurricanes don't care. You know when a hurricane has been somewhere because it changes things, rips things to shreds, turns things upside down.

Now, I know that hurricanes are serious business and I'm not trying to make light of the damage and casualties they can cause. I'm just saying... if people were rain, I'd rather be a hurricane than drizzle any day.

Especially now, when someone I love dearly is fighting for her life against cancer, I can't help but think of the mark I'm leaving on the world. My dear grandma is the greatest hurricane I know. When she enters a room, you know. You can see her path through the world because it's marked with the beauty that she imparts on everything she touches. Grandma turns things upside down because they are better that way-- it's just that no one else would have had the good sense to change it.

I want to honor my grandmother by being a hurricane myself. Maybe I'll get there someday. Today I feel like a heavy, no-nonsense downpour, and that's good enough. But because of Grandma's example, I won't be going back to being a drizzle.

Please keep my family in your prayers in this difficult time.

x,
   m

You're Doing It Wrong: Flirting

Okay, it's the moment you've all been waiting for... I'm going to talk about my love life. Let me preface this by saying two things: 1. I won't talk about anything that actually matters (so stop being so nosey) and 2. About 60% of the time, I'm still convinced I look like this:

So I'm always a little surprised when I get any male attention. (On a related note, the shoes in this picture are the famous shoes I wore when I fell down the hill durring that fateful first high school gym class.)

Anyways, flirting. I can think of about a million things I would love for a guy to do in an attempt to win my affections (flowers, chocolate, flowers, serenading me, dancing with me under the fading sunset... also flowers. Let it be noted that I like flowers.) but I think in my months here at college, I've run into several flirting methods that, to be frank, freaked me the heck out. And so, without further ado, I present to you Micaela's List of Things You Should Never Do to Get a Girl to Like You.

1. Ask her complex, Duct-tape-related questions at three-minute intervals. Okay, that sounds very specific, but seriously. If you start a conversation with someone, especially if you're on the bus and can't walk away, make sure you consistently... ya know... talk. If she has time to get out her iPod, listen to most of a Neon Trees song, and text her father an oddly detailed description of her lunch, you're doing it wrong. And when you do decide to grace her with the sound of your voice again, for the love of all that's holy, make sure it's something more engaging than a monologue about how many times you've broken your left bike pedal in the last six months. And if you have to talk about that, laugh when she makes a joke about only pedaling with one foot, because she knows it wasn't funny, but seriously, dude, you're being so awkward. And if you absolutely cannot do that, do not follow with a question about how she feels about BYU Duct-tape. She knows it exists, she just doesn't think it's worth talking about, but it's okay because you'll give her another three minutes to think of a totally unfunny tape joke so you can look at her like she's an idiot. 

2. Offer to build a shrine to her in your closet*. Yeah, that happened. It was followed by the sentence, "I'll make it out of chocolate bars, then light candles around it so I can watch it melt." Strangely enough, the ladies don't really go for that. I know, right?! Women...

3. Shove a package of raw hamburger in her face and tell her it's hers if she eats it all raw*. Chocolate bar might be a good substitute for hamburger, but that's just my opinion. Also, consider the fact that you're walking around with raw hamburger. Contemplate your life. Ask yourself, "Am I trying to die young?" and if the answer is yes, hit me up and I can get you a great shrink. 

4. Dress up in a silver MorphSuit and give her prolonged hugs. If you're not familiar with MorphSuits, they look like this:

But the guy was wearing an orange jersey over it. Regardless of the jersey, it made me think of this: 

(Yeah, I'm terrified of the Slender Man. If you don't know who that is, congratulations, you've never had your pants scared off. I'd tell you to go download and play Slender, but I can't wish that kind of terror on anyone...)

Hugging random strangers is weird enough when you can see their face, but when you add in the fact that this guy a. looked like Slender Man and b. was not actually wearing any pants, you can imagine how creepy things can get. 

If you're concerned she isn't adequately impressed, try hugging her for a really long time. Like, exceed the hug time limit by about 20 seconds. While smelling her hair. Nuzzling her face. Making her a little concerned that she's actually gone crazy. She'll totally want to date you after she recovers from the mental scaring you've caused her.

...Okay, it was hilarious. Seriously one of the best things I've seen at BYU. And the guy smelled awesome and hugged like a champ (Dude, if you're reading this, we should totally cuddle sometime. You don't even need to talk to me, just show up smelling good and willing to hug me.) and seemed to have the same twisted sense of humor I have (Okay, I'm calling it, we're soul mates.), but it was creepy nonetheless. (Seriously, call me sometime?)

Life is weird...

x, 

   m

*Yes, it was the same guy. In all honesty, it was hilarious, and I'm 34.5% sure he was totally kidding... But it was horribly awkward. Nice guy, though. Mad respect for being so gutsy, bro. 

Mutual Weirdness

The fantastic thing about starting college is that no one knows who you are. I know, that's totally a cliche, but it's true. No one knows about the time you fell down a hill on the first day of high school gym, or the time you threw up in front of your locker before the morning bell even rang, or the time you had a major braces/glasses/bowl haircut going on for about 5 years. (Not that any of that ever happened to me... ever.)

My first moth of college was exceptionally suck-tastic. I gained about 5 pounds that month from laying in my bed eating peanut M&M's and hard-core moping. It seems that moping is not, as I had originally anticipated, an aerobic exercise. The few times I did get out of bed (usually because I needed to pee so badly I thought I was going to die), I would avoid the mirror at all costs. Every time I'd catch a glimpse of myself in any reflective surface, I felt like I was looking into the past. The new environment and lack of friends seemed to have thrust me back in time to Middle School Me. All the insecurities of early puberty came rushing back to me faster than I rushed to the vending machine after the peanut M&M's had been restocked. Suddenly, I was 12 again. Everyone else was older, more "developed," more mature, more blonde,  more... cool... and I was... well... me. I had never felt more out of place in my life.

I tried to make friends, I really did, but every time I would meet someone that was potential friend material, I would clam up with the horrifying realization that there was nothing interesting about me. By the end of the first month, I was completely convinced I had alienated every single person I'd met by cracking corny jokes about... well... anything... that I got to a place where I was sure I had nothing to lose.

That's when it happened. I woke up one day and for once in my life, I didn't give a crap. There was going to be a dance that night, one that I had avoided thinking about for the last two weeks. As is wont to happen in the weeks preceding a dance, the conversations of all my female acquaintances had dissolved from mild coherence to crazy, "who's taking me to the dance?" rants. I knew with 100% certainty that no one was going to ask me, so I made plans to go to my aunt's house that day. A few hours before she was supposed to pick me up, she was in a car accident (I'm not even kidding), leaving me stuck on campus for the dreaded event. I decided not to go, after all, I didn't give a crap about anything. Then someone knocked on my door. It was the girl from down the hall and she was determined that I spend the night dancing. I resisted, but she was impressively persistant.

Long story short, I went to the dance and acted like a total dork. I had fun. I made friends. I ate disgusting, room-temperature cheesecake without gagging. It wasn't until I was walking home after the dance that I realized that I had successfully functioned as a human being for like, 4 whole hours. And when I went back to my room that night, I had a new friend with me. She liked Gossip Girl. We watched that together.

When I looked in the mirror the next day, I realized that I had, in fact, gone through puberty. Some girls from down the hall wanted to sit next to me at church. I talked to a boy without making a polygamy joke. I blew my hair dry.

I realized that trying to be friends with people is pointless. Real friends can't be forced, they just happen. They see you in all your dorky-wonderfulness and think "Goshdarn, she's weird but dangit if I don't love being around her." They think that you're at least kind of cool, even when you use words like "copious"or "enthralling." Real friends are the people that you meet and fall into a sort of mutual weirdness with.

I'm so grateful that I'm blessed with such wonderful friends, both old and new. I'm also grateful for puberty.

x,
   m

Sweatpants, or Homesick

Though I've been out West since the beginning of June, I'll readily admit to still having a little culture shock. I mean, I'm from Penn State, one of the biggest party schools in the US. I remember having trouble sleeping because the geniuses at the frat house a few blocks away decided to play Guitar Hero at 3am, totally drunk, over what I can only imagine was the biggest freaking speaker system know to man. That is not the kind of thing you run into at BYU. It just isn't.

But, seriously, the lack of alcohol doesn't really effect me much because never drank anyway. It's the small things that are still getting me. No caffeine sold on campus, hugging everyone you ever see (ever), the way the BYU Police guard the grass like it's the last grass on Earth... and no one wears sweatpants. No one. Ever. 

At Penn State, it's considered a good day if you decide to put on real clothes (ie not pajamas) and brush your hair on the same day. Gray is an acceptable color. Ponytails are the norm. Sometimes, people even leave the house without make-up. Heck, I knew people that had "regular" sweatpants and "dress-up" sweatpants. Uggs are considered an all-purpose shoe. Eastern Casual, as I think of it, values comfort to style at about a 3:1 ratio. 

Western Casual is a whole 'nother ball game. Jeans are the sweatpants of the West. If I leave my apartment wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and Sperry's (a pretty typical school outfit back at home), I will usually feel like a slob by the time I get to the bus stop. Jeans are acceptable, but they're more acceptable if they're day-glo green or leopard print, or, better yet, aren't jeans at all, but skirts! T-shirts are okay, assuming they've been layered half-to-death with cardigans and camisoles. I don't know how people get dressed in the morning! I can only imagine that they're getting up hours before I am, huddled around closets and drawers, inventing new and elaborate outfits, and twisting their (almost exclusively) long hair into complicated braids. And don't even get me started on the lengths some of the boys go to in order to look "vintage" or something.

Tell me that doesn't sound exhausting. I'm proud of myself when I blow-dry my hair. I've been know to dance around the kitchen on such days. 

Am I trying to be critical? Not in the least. People out West tend to look classy, put-together, and intelligent. I admire their dedication, I really do. If I weren't so dedicated to sleep, I'd probably be one of them. I'd wear pink pants and look perpetually pleasant, but sometimes, I miss sweatpants and wearing Uggs in any weather. I miss the color gray (both in clothing and in the weather), I miss ponytails, and not feeling obligated to hug people.

I'm homesick today. You can find me in my room, wearing Uggs and sweats, telling myself That's What She Said jokes. 

x,

   m

Because Life Can Suck

This won't be terribly cheerful for a first blog post, but it's what's been on my mind this week. In wake of what has been one of the hardest years of my life, I've found myself reflecting a lot on how people react to me when I tell them my story. No part of this is meant to be offensive or bitter; I just know what it's like to be hurting and have people not know quite what to do with you. 

Sometimes life straight-up sucks. There are probably a million more elegant ways to say that, but it all means the same thing: Stuff gets hard. When you're older, it seems like it's to be expected. People nod when you tell them what you're going through, they share stories of that one time that their kid/dog/lawyer/car did exactly the same thing you're describing (even if it's nowhere near close). It's like after the age of forty, personal tragedy isn't quite as tragic. I'm 18, so I can't really speak to the truth of any of that, but from what I've observed, people are less likely to treat you like a charity case.

It's different when you're younger. If you so much as whisper the word "abuse," you become a delicate little flower. People cry for you. They compliment you on random stuff that doesn't really matter. They admire you for being so strong and courageous, like you have some kind of choice. You go from being a normal kid to being a glass doll in no time flat. People you've known all your life suddenly treat you like some kind of hero. Acquaintances that you've hardly even discussed the weather with try to get you to "talk about your feelings," like you've been best friends for years. It feels like you have to put on a show and give people what they want, or they'll be disappointed with you. People seem to expect you to cry, pour your heart out, or at least ask them for a tissue.

Or they go the other direction, acting lik the sun is shining out of their butts, avoiding asking personal questions, making you feel like whatever happened to you was a shame to be swept under the rug. I still don't know how to handle those people.

I guess my point here is this: If you know someone is hurting, don't be afraid to treat them just as you did before. They are still the same person. They need reassurance that their tragedy does not define them. Most victims of abuse will spend their whole lives trying to sperate their personal identity from what happened to them-- when you treat them like a ticking time bomb, it solidifies their idea that they are the abuse. These things generally go on for a long time; it isn't more or less real to them now that you happen to know about it. They are quite literally the same person they were before you knew.

If they want to talk, let them talk. If they want to sit and be quiet, let them do that. If they want to act like nothing's wrong, give them the courtesy of acting like nothing is. And for goodness' sake, if you weren't close friends before the incident, don't act like you are. You may mean well, but it comes across as fake and empty. A smile will do, so will a simple, "I like your shirt."If all else fails, "I'm praying for you," is always appropriate.

After a particularly rough month, my best friends were the people that would just sit next to me when I did homework, laugh at my jokes, and treat me like the human I was before. They never asked me if I was "okay" because they knew I wasn't. They asked me how I was doing. I remember one particular incident waiting for class to start. One of my best friends asked me how I was doing. "Fine," I said. She looked at me, straight in the eyes, and said, "I know you're not." "Yeah," I said. Then we both started to laugh. That was one of the brightest spots I remember from the last year.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful by any means-- there are so many people that have helped me and my family more than I could ever express. Countless times, I've been offered a shoulder to cry on, a hug, or a kind word precisely when I needed it the most. Being loving and supportive is good. Being sensitive to others is wonderful. Just make sure you're doing in a way that makes the other person feel comfortable.

x,

   m