MY MUSIC

You've wanted to hear it and now you can.
go here: KaRyn's Artist Page on Soundclick

these are rough demo's that I recorded in my aunts basement. The official demo contains my cover of "Don't Think Twice" by Bob Dylan, and 3 of my originals "Ordinary Girl", "What if I" and "Learning Curve".

Tell me what you think, but only if you like it.

Free Ticket to the Underground Subway

So remember how I plowed into a kid on a bike a while ago? I don't think I mentioned how I wept openly at the bike shop where we were getting his wheel fixed and my victim's mother put her arm around me and said "it's ok, we're all just learning." (which is not true...I've been driving since I was 17, how much more learning can I do???) and the bike shop guy, concerned no doubt for the glass countertop on which I was violently sniveling asked, "dude, do you need a tissue?" When I got back to work, my victim unexpectedly showed up and handed me a card which at first I mistook for my credit card...I thought maybe I had left it at the bikeshop. But upon closer inspection, it was a GIFT CARD to subway. A 20 dollar gift card. MY VICTIM gave ME, his would-be-killer, a present because I was so pathetic (although he said it was because I was so nice.... I know what it was really about.) That has to be a first.

So now, I go to subway every monday and order the same thing. I get a veggie delight on whole wheat (4 points), 2 triangles of american cheese (1 point) and a packet of light mayo (1 point) in honor of the $550 monday, my victim and his mom. This would seem to be a rather unremarkable event except that the subway that I frequent is an apparent CIRCUS. It's in the avenues under-ground and you can never get in an out in less than 20 minutes even when you hit it well past the lunch hour. The reason: Shakey, skater-dude and sharon. This is the cast of characters behind the sneeze-guard. These are the people that I trust not to contaminate my veggies and put the correct amount of sub-points on my card.

Shakey has turrets or something and she's sweet and sometimes smiley but REFUSES to acknowledge that I am a regular who orders the exact same thing every time I come in. We start out the same way every time. The vacant look, the shakey hands of unsure-ness as she asks me YET AGAIN what kind of bread and cheese. Then she proceeds to push my sandwich toward skater-dude forcing me to ask YET AGAIN if I can have it toasted. sigh. Skater dude picks up from here. He's got to be no older than 20 and its obvious that he is just doing this for new trucks on his board. He's cute though, so I kind of have a bit of a sick old lady crush on him... I flirt a little and tell him that I want everything on my sandwich and point to the gross assortment of pickled peppers and say "except those" while coquettishly wrinkling my nose. He always reacts appropriately to my flirting which makes the fact that he puts about 400 pounds of salt and pepper on the sandwich somehow OK.

Then there's sharon. She generally takes my money and smiles all business-like and calls me Hon. She's the manager or owner as far as I can tell and she is consistently trying to teach skater-dude and shakey how to use the computerized register to which skater-dude often replies belligerently, "Yeah, I didn't catch that." as he walks away from her. I would like to feel sorry for Sharon since I'm sure it's not easy to rally these particular troops, but I don't mostly because my friend Mark told me that she often gives him a free cookie just because he is scottish. I GET NO COOKIE and therefore have NO PITY for Sharon the stately manager of the underground subway.

And here is the truth. I keep going back to this particular subway even though the customer service is terrifically slow. I go for one reason and one reason only : They do not charge me for extra spinach (when it has not been quarantined due to e-coli outbreaks). So shakey, skater-dude and sharon are a small price to pay for the best veggie delight in the Salt Lake Valley. Check it out and tell me if I am not right.

Things That Make Me Happy Today....

A wise internet blog-stalker turned darling friend from Texas once reminded me that everyday we have moments of goodness...those seconds that are just right even in a bad day when you are very sure that you are about to succumb to the sore throat annoyance of your yearly sinus infection. Today these moments are just pouring in my windows, literally. I've captured a few with my camera for your viewing pleasure. This is what perfect abundance is all about, no?





I now know the due date. October 25th!!! Babies make me happy today! 

The sunlight that comes in my new window in my new office. 

Sarah's sock and shoe combo at SL roasting company. 

My name on a poster at the Orem Mall...I am the Tiffany of Utah... 

I didn't eat the greenbeans and you can't make me...

Today I had microwaved greenbeans with my lunch. I cooked them, seasoned them and brought them with me to my desk with the intention of eating them. I need 5 fruits and vegetables a day on weight watchers, but even my newly found re-motivation to be healthy could not entice me to consume those shriveled little green things coated in black pepper and toxic spray butter. Instead, I consumed approximately 40 baking chocolate chips...you know those big disc-y kind that should not be eaten a la carte? They weren't godiva, but they were better than greenbeans. So there.

Call me petulant, I don't care.

Do you know that I didn't even remember my best friend's baby due date? Alta is having little KaRyn in like a week and I thought it wasn't until NOVEMBER. PS. no matter how hard I try, she doesn't really plan to name the little nipper after me...and I am finally ready to give up because I don't deserve to be a namesake if I can't even pay attention to the due date. What a crappy friend I've been since I got back from the land down under. I mean, I'll admit that part of my charm is my general narcissism...you KNOW it's true or else you wouldn't be reading my blog. If I didn't believe that my life was dramatic and interesting and fabulous, then I wouldn't want to write about it and you wouldn't voyueristically be reading about it. But come on. At some point, I have to stop thinking about me and realize that people are living around me...people I LOVE are creeping up to insanely adventurous thresholds of LIFE. What can possibly be more exciting and adventurous than bringing a life into the world...one that you are solely responsible for shaping and molding and could truly screw up if you aren't careful???

The point is that I acknowledge my weaknesses. I acknowledge that I do not always succeed in getting past myself. I am too loud at church and say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I speak over people. I care too much what people think. I am petty and resentful. I eat the chocolate instead of the greenbeans. I avoid things that I don't want to deal with. I never shred my personal information before putting it in the dumpster. I tell everyone everything about my life and then regret it later. I have an overwhelming addiction to diet coke and fried chicken strips from Albertsons. I wash my hands after I touch your dog. I cry a lot and don't return your phone calls. I rarely follow through. But I'm trying to be better....I swear I'm trying and if I don't get it right before the baby is born...forgive me!!!!!!!

Today I wish I was a Brazilian- Asian 12 year old Rockstar

OH MY GOSH...Maren and Justin dragged me to possibly one of the best shows that I have been to in a long long time. I mean, it was so good that I was still hyper when I woke up this morning after only 4 hours of sleep. CSS opened (stands for something that I can't pronounce in Portuguese) for LADYTRON. Justin who is 40 times cooler than me described the music as something something electroclash something. Basically what that means is that they had 5 freaking synths and weird black 80's outfits and sang songs that had unintelligible lyrics and sounds that made your ears almost bleed. OH BUT YOU DANCED...and danced and danced...under the spell of Ladytron. And then you bought merch because they had very cool t-shirts. Even if I never own a ladytron album, I will have a cool concert T. Actually, it turned out that I knew some of the songs thanks to my Arthurmatic baby ipod which has music cooler than me on it...

Now, why do I want to be a Brazilian- Asian 12 year old rock star? Because the opening band CSS was hilarious and wild and their lead singer was adorable. I wanted to be her. All my dreams of folk stardom died when I saw her in her cute David Lee Roth-esque red leopard print spandex leggings and oversized janet jackson t-shirt that she probably picked up at DI. She flipped her shaggy hair all over the place and made love to the crowd like she was old enough to be on stage...We are pretty sure they were not legal and yet they were drinking and doing drunken things...that part, I wasn't so into, but the leggings...the leggings...

In my next life. Dear God. Asian. Brazilian. 12 year old. Rock star. Leggings. Thank you.

WE ARE DOMESTIC GODDESSES

I went to Sarah's on Tuesday night and we picked apples from the trees in her yard and peeled, and peeled and boiled, and spiced and in the end we had APPLESAUCE! HOMEMADE applesauce. I will admit that I felt positively rustic and domestic and feminine. Every fall it seems that I go through a farming phase. I love the u-pick farm in Layton and just yesterday I stopped and bought like 5 different kinds of squash just because I could. Do I know more than one way to eat a squash? nay. But I bought them all anyway. Let the domestic experiments begin.




No wonder eve at the apple... 

Sarah in the Tree... 

Apple Pickers picking apples at the Cabin 

my $150 haircut makes me happy most days! 

Sun breaking through the clouds. BEAUTIFUL downtown SLC. 10/2/06 

The Most Beautiful Day is EVERYDAY!

I'm not kidding when I tell you that today was the most beautiful day. I spent the morning at the preserve for work and the weather was delicious, the skies were the bluest blue, the plumes of the reedgrass were perfectly floppy and every shade of purple and green-turning-golden/rust. I sat for a few minutes just meditating among the tall plants of the wetlands and heard sandhill cranes perfectly migrating with their perfectly trumpeting sound like frogs with weird polyps on their vocal chords. I thought about the moment and I realized that I was in love with it.

I'm testing out this new theory of mine that every day is perfectly abundant...that my life is at any given moment, complete as the Lord would have it. I do not lack for the things that I do not have, I do not need. When God says that he clothes the lilies of the field and that they neither spin nor toil, he's talking about me. If I do not have an eternal marriage relationship right now, it's because I do not need it right now. If I am a little disatisfied with my job, it's because I need the struggle that accompanies the "life decision making process". THis new brain wave doesn't necessarily make life easier, but it does put it into perspective and it means that I don't have to be angry at God for not giving me what I want. I like that idea. A lot.

I've been kind of angry lately. In college I had a punching nun and a punching monkey. I loved to watch their ineffectual little fists mechanically hit the air. It's funny to watch a nun punch things with balls for hands. What's not so funny is feeling like a punching monkey. I flipped a guy off the other day for honking at me as I pulled into traffic. I'm tired of taking offense. General conference was awesome and elder bednar's talk about letting go of offense was pure genius or inspiration or a little of both. (If you're like Lumina and Adam and you have to wait until this weekend to find out whether the world is ending tomorrow, I'm sorry to ruin it for you...it's not...but pay attention to President Hinckley and Elder Hollands talks. POWER in words)

One of my coworkers asked if conference weekend was a relaxing experience...oh YES PLEASE!!! I would choose to listen to Apostles and Prophets and feel that spirit of truth, power and goodness every day if only I could force them to hang out in the conference center day in and day out for my own purposes. I am renewed and it seems that I am ready to open myself up to really living the whole PERFECT ABUNDANCE concept...at least this week.

Alie was concerned that I've been a little too open in my blog about my current malaise and thought that if all you did was read this, you might think I was a rejected, despondent depressive. In truth, some days I am...but you know what? My soul is anchored in hope. I am not bitter. I am not bitter. I am not bitter. I have black cherry vanilla diet coke, friends who invite me to can homemade apple sauce with them and an open mind, heart and soul. What more can a girl ask for????