Ok, yes—I admit it: I am one of those “Insert I-Pod Headphones in Ear, please don’t talk to me, you slightly recognizable stranger” kind of people. I hate small talk. I hate being forced into conversation with your visiting teacher and/or grad student professor because you accidentally fell into the same step as them on the way up to campus. I much prefer relationships to mutate organically.

I am also a creature of routine, so I like my schedule and I gravitate towards the familiar. So despite my distaste for bonding with people over small talk, clinging to my comfort zone has allowed me to always have a rather intimate relationship with my tellers at the bank. A strangely intimate relationship with my tellers out of the bank. (Take your mind out of the gutters, folks. Not that kind of intimate. Gross.). For whatever reason, all of our banking small talk about credit card protection and bad addition on my deposit slips usually creates long-lasting bonds that I have come to cherish.

Let’s see, first, at 1^st Bank, there was Nancy. She was blonde and soft-spoken, and for some reason the Line Gods always deposited me right at her telling station whenever I went to make a withdrawal from the savings account I wasn’t supposed to know about in high school.

She was later replaced by Forrest, who grew so tired of my incessant whining about 1^st Bank’s policy shift to supply their valued customers with generic suckers, that he purchased me my own VERY special bag of Dum-Dums for every visit (“Why yes, I WILL take two butterscotch and a mystery flavor, thanks!”).

Then came Nick with US Bank inside of Target. After a year-long flirtation with Nick, I decided it was time to pass him off for best friend approval, and pointed him out to Chloe while on a Target shopping spree—Only to discover that he was staring right at us as I had my pointer finger elongated in his direction. And when my bosses demanded the next day that I get a change order from US bank, my conversation with Nick went like this:

Nick: Hey, I saw you here yesterday,

Me: Wait, really?

Nick: Yeah, you and your friend. You were right there. (At this point, Nick whipped out his pointer finger to indicate not only WHERE he saw me, but also WHAT he saw me doing.)

Me: I wasn’t here yesterday. Oh! You know what, it must have been my twin!

Nick: Your twin?

Me: Yes, my twin.

Nick: (Disbelievingly) And what’s your twin’s name?

Me: (Retardedly) Uhh—Sienna.

Needless to say, this embarrassing freshmen-year-old lie abruptly ended my intimate teller relationship with Nick. Fortunately, Nick got promoted weeks later.

And fortunately, teller Kort from Wells Fargo got promoted as well after a series of awkward interactions involving crepes and concerts that never happened. (It is here that I should like to include a brief interjection from Bethany who stated, “There is something ironic about someone named Kort, who doesn’t properly court.”)

But I do not dislike Kort, mostly because he has led me to my newest teller relationship with Mari. Mari has a diamond ring the size of a baby Orca. Her husband didn’t call her until five months after their first date. I know this because Mari loves me and I love Mari. Mari listens sympathetically as I supply her with gossip about her former co-workers, and she, in turn tells me—with all of her teller wisdom—why boys behave the way they do.

I’m not sure what the moral of this story is exactly, except to say that, if you are ever my teller at the bank, I will gladly take my headphones out for you.

College Co-Eds do silly things. For instance: College Co-Eds wake up to steal Christmas trees out of the boy’s dorms at four in the morning. College Co-Eds make a utility closet into an “Angry Room” where they can go and place their reasons for being angry on colorful little post-its for all to see. College Co-Eds hang mariachi band memorabilia on the doors of unsuspecting boys.

But recently, me and my fellow Collge Co-Eds have done the craziest thing of all: The Facebook Fast.

Recently we instated fasting weeks, where for one week only we give up something in order to make us more disciplined, better people. One week we are only going to wear mascara and no other make-up in order to boost our self-love for our natural beauty. One week we will forego our dessert consumption. One week we will stop listening to our I-pods on campus, thereby shutting out the world and eliminating the “Go Away” signals we are intentionally sending to innocent conversationalists.

But this week… We decided to give up facebook. Oh the horror! My roommate, Jessica, personally changed my password, taking any element of free agency out of my decision.

Now, for those of you who have read my blog, you should be semi-familiar with one of the main characters of my life. Her name is Chloe Noelle. I daresay she is my partner in crime for 99 percent of my ridiculous college Co-Ed antics. One time, she got a gummi bear stuck up her nose. I love her dearly.

But not right now.

Yesterday I got the semi-ambiguous text message from Ms. Skidmore. It went like this: “Haha wow, you weren’t kidding. That’s some poofy hair in that picture my dear!” When I inquired further, she told me that “Those pictures Jennifer Munson tagged of you. Little Sierra!”

Jennifer Munson, bless her heart, saw me through my ugliest days and loved me anyways. But tagging pictures of my eighth grade, poofy-haired, gangly arms, brace-faced self on facebook constitutes as a big violation of our friendship contract, if you ask me. Quickly I got on the internet to survey the damage, only to realize that Jessica, my roommate, was holding my password hostage. I had no defense against the incriminating pictures of me on facebook!

Come to discover this was all part of Chloe Skidmore’s wily devices to get me to back down on my ridiculous facebook fast. Alas, and thank goodness, there are no eighth grade pictures of me (as of yet) on the internet, and Chloe did not succeed at making me break my fast.

But Chloe Noelle, rest assured: “Eye’m watching you.”

Probably not, because I did not even know about this amazingly resourceful punctuation mark until my grammar class today (and by-the-way, can I confess here and now my sublime love for my English grammar class here and now?! Ok, I will! I love my English Grammar class. Never before have I been surrounded by a sea of students who care deeply about the function of an participial phrase. Furthermore, I have never had a professor, an intelligent bad-A grammarian, instruct me to break every preconceived English rule I’d ever adhered to in my life. I love this class!).

Anyways, the interrobang. In this aforementioned grammar class, the eager pool of students, bum cheeks barely clinging to the front of our chairs we were so enthralled with the occupation of an adverbial clause, enthusiastically asked questions about how far we could push the English language to express ourselves. Then one inspired student asked perhaps the most important grammatical question that has ever been asked.

“So, Professor Ostenson, if we can break all these punctuation rules for the sake of expression, what about those who want to use both an exclamation point and a question mark?”

It was then we learned about this useful device. You guessed it. The interrobang.

This device was invented for the sole purpose of solving the grammatical quandary about whether or not it was acceptable to conclude a sentence with two punctuation marks. Those “?! nay-sayers” fear no more. This little tool should send the English-loving blogger community into an bed-wetting/ blogging frenzy. Finally English language enthusiasts have invented a tool so functional that excitement and curiosity can be expressed with just one symbol!

Readers, we have an exciting future ahead of us. A future that will include an interrobang button on our laptop keyboards. A future where Microsoft Word doesn’t underline our “?!”‘s in squiggly green. A future that snidely side-steps you grammar nazis and says that expression is more important than your grammatical correctness.

Before I conclude, allow me two parting thoughts: First, I would like to issue a formal thanks to whoever came up with the term “interrobang.” I, too, think of grammar as something that might bang. The only more appropriate term I could invent for this new punctuation mark is perhaps the “interrosmash,” but that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as smoothly, so well done “Interrobangers.”

Secondly, I want to leave you with this enigmatic question:

What comes first, the question mark or the exclamation point?

“Depends on which one is stronger, the question or the exclamation.”–Jon Ostenson.

Are you familiar with this Satanic and glorious game? A game so savory, so haunting, that the five minutes you vow to play expands into an unthinkable four hours where the only thing that matters are lining up the multipliers and lining up rows of five. A game so enchanting that it matters not what social interaction you aren’t having, but only the points quickly racking up on the top left side of the screen. I feel my life getting sucked into the world wind of gemstones, and as long as it stays on my I-Pod, there is no foreseeable end in sight.

I explain the true menace of the game to make this lapse of childcare forgivable in the eyes of my readers. It wouldn’t have happened had it not been for all the Blitzing going on. Bethany and I were at the computer—eyes watering, hearts thundering beyond our ribcage and to our entire body for what seemed like mere moments. Surely it couldn’t have been longer than one round. Fixated we sat. Transfixed, Mesmerized, Bedazzled… Bejeweled. And finally when consciousness seemed nigh, we realized that a strange calm had come over the house. We rose from the computer room only to find the product of our neglect!

Have you ever seen something that just… makes you better? Because it takes everything you know and everything you feel and just flips it upside down, and hands your knowings and feelings back to you with a big sign stamped across them that says “You are wrong” and you can’t help but realize that they are right.

I saw something that made me better. BYU’s latest theatrical project, which can’t be named for copyright’s sake just… made me better. Because now I know that I am wrong about my feeling that things couldn’t be worse than they already are.

For those of you who did not see BYU’s unnamed production, let me explain to you why you should have. First of all, the actors not just crept, and not just danced, but positively burrowed into your heart and twisted their ways into all the crevices until it bled. This doesn’t sound pleasant, and truth be told, it wasn’t really, but it reminded me how to feel again. To feel so hard you bleed. And something about that was comforting.

Secondly, the tiny black box of the theater mutated before your very eyes into a drab dance hall without the use of any props or set. For two meaningful hours the world transformed and absorbed into a disgusting world of entertainment, manipulated by masks and drama. For two short but oh-so-long hours everything was horrible and beautiful, black and bare yet elaborate and decadent considering you were all the way back in the 1930’s.

And third of all, the balmy realization that things can always be worse. They can always be worse to the point where “living ain’t the prize anymore.” Things can be so bad that you have to beg someone else to kill you because you just don’t have the courage. Things can always be worse.

It’s pieces like that that make you realize that you have it good and you were wrong to think otherwise.

I’ve been a kid, I think maybe my whole life, until this year when I grew up so much that I think I became addicted to it. Size-wise, I grew down a little, but I think mentally I have finally hit five foot seven. And I think age 21 brought me a new wrinkle, maybe in my forehead, or my cheeks, or my brain, but quite possibly—and most of all—I have a new wrinkle in my soul.

Soul wrinkles are different than forehead and cheek wrinkles, which usually indicate the aging process, and maybe dry skin. Brain wrinkles indicate increased knowledge and since I am college student, I suppose it makes sense that I’ve acquired a few more of these. But soul wrinkles are a different breed of wrinkle. A soul wrinkle isn’t visible. It isn’t surface level. A soul wrinkle takes its shoes off and wades barefoot through your bloodstream. It builds a little nest in your heart and settles for the season. A soul wrinkle isn’t visible, yet it registers an identifiable shift in your outward demeanor, and therefore people can tell you have one.

So what is the origin of this unexplored wrinkle? I can pinpoint two things this year that brought it about: My travels to Europe and my relationship with Shaun Michael Johnson.

Chronologically, it makes sense to first discuss my travels. “My travels” include the month spent agonizing over whether or not they were actually going to happen. For those of you who don’t know, I started my year with every intention of going to Metz, France to be an au pair (which is a glorified nanny) for eight months. I sold my purple Provo apartment, deferred my enrollment for a semester, broke things off with my nameless casual male attachment du jour, and quit my job, thus putting all my eggs in the European basket, which was decorated like the inside of Versailles and plastered with paintings by Leonardo DaVinci. I wasted January waiting for my work visa to arrive, and as soon as it did, I got “the fated email” from the family that I was supposed to nanny for. Would you like to see it? Here it is, verbatim:

“Bonjour Sierra,

I am deeply sorry not to write you back but something happens last week and we had a serious conversation with Pierre this weekend. Actually, I didn’t have the courage to call you because I am really upset, but Pierre lost his job and financially with the crisis in Europe, we are not able to welcome you for the year…. I AM SORRY SORRY because you are so great and it was a hard decision to take…”

While I am sure that her decision was actually hard to make, for me, it was difficult to take. With this startling introduction to 2009, I was almost certain that the year was going to be a complete wash. I spent two full days on my mother’s leather sectional watching “The OC,” (which, let’s face it, only made things worse,) and bemoaning the loss of my adventure. Yet, in retrospect, I embrace this experience as part of “the wrinkle.” Because out of the dust, I came back stronger– a life motif I’ve discovered this year. Finding another route to Europe required me to be resourceful, to not allow my metaphorical kick in the crotch to physically debilitate me. I still had my European adventure, and in retrospect, fighting for it made the journey even sweeter.

In Ireland I stuck my face out over a 300-foot drop into the ocean. I sat where William Wordsworth composed his poetry. In Wales I visited the country of my ancestors and felt them rooting me on with resolute fists punching the air. I read Peter Pan under a tree in France, and could feel myself growing up as I encountered the boy who never could. I came to find that there was something much deeper to me than just my little American body. There, in Europe, were the roots of my existence. I dug up my roots and wiggled my toes around in the dirt surrounding them. I planted a new part of myself, writing along the way about the changes that were taking place inside me, about the wrinkle that was forming. I romped around the country that gave me life. It was no accident that I got that fated email from my French family that day. Because going on the British Literature Study Abroad was so much better for me. It changed me. It made me wiser. It gave me a new purpose and a new understanding of self. I’m better because of it.

And so it’s only fair to explain the other half of the year, maybe (dare I say it?) the better part of the year. I am nervous to write it down for fear that he is reading it, but ultimately I think it’s just all too fair that I pay tribute to the boy that made 2009 the best year of all 21 of my years. If it hadn’t been for the fated email, I would have been in France when I was supposed to be meeting Shaun Johnson. Thank goodness for disappointment.

Shaun Johnson made me smart. He gave me confidence when I had none. He taught me about how I deserved to be treated, and how much better it was to have one person truly care about you rather than several other people who are mildly interested in the way your butt looks in jeans. He taught me how to settle down. He taught me that I was pretty without the makeup of the day, or the disguise of the century. And even if things didn’t “work” between us, I’m thrilled that he happened to me, because otherwise I would just have 21-year-old forehead wrinkles, and those are absolutely no fun. Without Shaun Johnson, there would be no wrinkles in the surface of my soul. Shaun Johnson inspired words to write. Journal entries, and stories, and letters all happened because of him. 2009 would have been a sour peach with a worm embedded within. Instead, 2009 was a succulent watermelon that leaves sweet juices trailing from the corners of your grin—even if you had to spit out a couple of seeds.

2009 has been described by someone other than me like this: “2009 was like a really great book that had a disappointing ending, but I still really enjoyed reading it.” Can I echo this? But can I make an amendment? “2009 was like a really great book that had a disappointing ending, but I still really enjoyed writing it.” I authored my own version of 2009, and despite the extreme ups of the last 365 days, bumps and bruises definitely elbowed their way into my story. I do not shun them. I embrace them. They mingled with the good of 2009 and made it the best year I’ve ever written. The bumps and bruises are part of “the wrinkle”, because let’s face it, a wrinkle is not an entirely good thing.

2009 brought 21. It brought a 3.8 GPA, and acceptance into my major, and it brought Xan home from a mission. But most of all it brought me a soul wrinkle that forces me to grow up just a little bit. It forces me to say goodbye to kid Sierra, and embrace the burgeoning adult that I’ve been threatening to become my entire youth. So I’m a little bit wiser after this year. Maybe a little bit sadder, but a little bit happier too.