My apartment smells like pooh, and I’m not talking about A.A. Milne’s cuddly bear. As a whole our apartment has had to cope with an over-abundance of unpleasant odor, which I will now chronicle for you now.

The Rotten Milk incident- I have since wrote about this on previous blogs so I won’t go into large detail except to say that it was enough to trigger my gag reflexes in an impressive way.

And then there was the mold ordeal. Please don’t think we as an apartment have terrible hygiene. I think we have about the same amount of cleanliness as most college co-eds, which is to say, we shower daily, wash our hair every other day, and fuss with our hair far too much and usually we do our dishes within an hour of having eaten them. It was an apartment malfunction that led to mold, where our air conditioner leaked coolant into our carpet steadily for about a year while maintenance men were continually stymied by the repair, and thus mold began to grow. Now I know how to diagnose a mold problem: The carpet smells like BO.

But today, today, might be the worst of all smell problems that we’ve had, and I feel like I’ve encountered more than my share of nasty smells in my life. But last night when I returned to my apartment after some late night homeworking, the overwhelming unpleasantness of methane gas hit my nose, and knocked me to the floor. My apartment smells like pooh, like now we also have a plumbing problem to contend with. I say this not to be crass but to be blatant and truthful. It smells so bad. Don’t be surprised if you see the residents of #9 running around with gas masks for the next week until the problem is fixed.

In Summation: It is time to move. It is time to move. It’s time to move.

I could navigate C-470 with a blindfold, that’s how familiar I feel with Colorado’s roadways. I could identify the time of day in Colorado, judging by the sun’s radiance behind the clouds as it slips behind the hogback. I could smell my way to the valley, I could taste my way home with Simon and Garfunkel harmonizing through my speakers something about being homeward bound. There’s nothing like that lamppost at the end of the cul-de-sac where I used to watch snow fall into the Colorado dark. There’s nothing like watching Blake Collins unwrap his latest injury with Starbucks Earl Grey in his left hand, and feeling sudden complacency with the world. There’s nothing like collapsing into a bed that saw all of my dreams, and held me tightly through them.

Apology: I am sorry to be using my blog as a public forum to discuss my grief. I never envisioned becoming one of these people. In fact, I even vowed not to become one of these people that use their blog this way. But since I am not using my blog in much of anyway, and since I have all of two readers (thanks, and a special apology to you in particular) anyways, I figure I might as well use this medium to send my martyrdom into the abyss. I think for Robinson women, it just feels better when someone knows we are suffering. So, my readers, I shall punish you for perhaps a few more posts yet, but stick with me, I will recover from my funk.

I think I choose to share this particular sad thing because it is so intensely relatable. It seems like almost everyone has suffered some sort of heart break in their life, whether it was Judy stuffing the Valentine you spent a week crafting for her back into your own Valentine Box, or whether it was Brian, who broke off your engagement two weeks before the wedding. I argue that a humanizing element of life is this current break-up, because I can now empathize with Brian and Judy’s victims. So there’s a silver lining.

Please blame the following cliché on the fact that I am sad and lacking in creative energy, but today Ifeel like there is a gaping Shaun hole in my life that I wish he would just come and fill with his skinny little arms and a shovel full of love. Is that how this is supposed to feel? Anyone got any particularly good post break-up advice for me. I’ve got a hole to fill.

I just went to my very first movie by myself, and I’m sitting on my bed now, listening to “She’s got you high,” off the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack and ripping open my box of “Buncha CRUNCH” TM, and licking the chocolate off the box seams, and wondering how in the hell am I supposed to respond to this? Going to a movie by yourself seems to connote one of two things in American society: 1) Either you are so self-confident and/or pretentious that movie-going with a companion is so beneath you because they can’t possibly understand the complexity of the themes the film presents or B) you’re so lonely you can’t even muster up one companion to join you at the latest blockbuster, or in my case, burgeoning indie-flick. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy my own blissful box of Buncha Crunch, or that I didn’t laugh at elements of the plot that might be considered socially unacceptable, or that I didn’t still get annoyed at the people walking out of the theater at the climax of the movie, especially because it was only mildly offensive. But overall, I must confess that the movie-going experience is just not the same without having someone beside you to brush buttery knuckles with in the popcorn bag (which are five dollars these days). Something about seeing this particular movie, or something about seeing this particular movie by myself has made me curl into my nearest Teddy Bear and sob off all of my synthetic eyelashes into his synthetic bear fur.

I was on the surface of sleep, that part of slumber where dreams are so close that you find yourself sleep-talking because you can’t tell whether or not your amid the realm of imaginings or the land of the awake. I was on the surface of sleep, so it was at first difficult to tell whether or not my sub-conscious was inventing the ever-so-sweet but slightly mournful call for “Elastigirl?”
It soon became apparent that it was not some asleep apparition that was calling out, but in fact, my three-year-old precious nephew, Thomas, calling longingly into the ubiquitous dark of the Robinson house. I opened my door, and called back to him.
“Dash?” Thomas has recently personified the character from his favorite movie, The Incredibles. I think it’s incredible that his imagination is already so vivid. It’s the kind of imagination I can only have when I am on the surface of sleep.
“Violet?” He calls back before I have a chance to flip on a light. I am flattered that he remembers my voice and deems me worthy of a super hero nickname. I go down to the bottom of the stairs to greet him as he lethargically rubs the sleep out of his drooping eyes. I ask him if I can pick him up and he reaches out to me, conceding and cuddling close to me while he tells me of his desire to see Elastigirl again. I lethargically rub the sleep out of my eyes, more than happy to take my little lovey nephew and pass him off to his parents, my brother and sister, who by all means are Mr. and Mrs. Incredible. I just feel lucky that I get to be part of the process, where I get to see good parenting and a loving family at work. I am excited that I am not yet a mother, but I get to observe examples of how to be one.
I am at an exciting phase of my life where I am about to become something of surrogate parents for three little boys in France. While no blood ties can be established between me and these little boys, it is my hope that if not their big sister, if not their mom, at least I can become their Violet, and maybe I can come back just a little bit more Incredible.

I like to think of myself as a charitable person. I’m not saying I’m Mother Theresa, but if someone drops their books, I usually hope to be the first one to hit the ground to put the person’s day back together. Or you know, if my roommate was carrying heavy loads of stuff down to her car, I envision that I would turn off Gilmore Girls to assist them to their car, etc. My roommate Chloe Noelle Skidmore is more of the dog-eat-dog, Darwin is my best pal variety. I’d suspected this about her before, but finally this morning my postulations were confirmed.
As I was getting ready for school, I popped a wonderfully delicious coffee cake muffin into my mouth (made special for me by my non dog-eat-dog, but rather dog-eat-muffin home teachers), and continued with my grooming ritual. All of the sudden, unnervingly, I felt my coffee cake muffin slide from my esophagus into my trachea. It was the worst sort of feeling, the feeling of slow death by suffocation. I’m sure you have all been there. And I gave an impressive cough. A cough that lasted twenty minutes. A cough that was so loud that surely all of Provo could hear it. And did Chloe stir?
I would like to say that she just sleeps like a zombie and was completely imperturbable. I’d like to say that she had no idea that I was dying, because it would have held up much better than her argument that she just didn’t really feel like saving my life. But no, Chloe was roused, shot me a look that would have killed me if the muffin wasn’t already, that plainly said, “How dare you interrupt my slumber with your life-preservation!” I struggled over to her bed, begging for relief, pleading through my coughs for a heimlich, or maybe just a reassuring pat on the back, but did it come? No it did not. She pushed me off of her bed, where I fell to the ground in agony, forced to Heimlich myself back to life, which I did with record speed.
Still, I was determined to teach Chloe a lesson, so I feigned my death, and waited for Chloe to wake up naturally, and suffer the consequences for her inattention to my needs. When she did wake, she merely toed my shoulder to make sure that I was really dead, and then used me as a floor mat, kneeling upon me to say her morning prayers.
Later, once the jig was up and I had revealed myself to be truly alive, she wasn’t even happy or excited or relieved. She merely said,
“You weren’t dying! Besides, I could hear you coughing while my eyes were closed, but I was having the best sleep of my life.”

If anyone needs a new roommate, may I recommend Chloe Noelle Skidmore? She is so selfless.

It was the smell that hit me first. Anyone that ever set foot in Chatfield’s theater can remember the smell of collected dust, sweat, and excitement that lingered on the rafters, that permeated the curtains, and that resonated in the crimson red theater seats. And yet you may say, Sierra, that was high school, move on, I’m trying to explain that while that smell was the smell of potential, the smell of happiness and the smell of welcome comfort, it was also the smell of inhibition. The moment I met that smell on the threshold of my high school career was the moment that I, for the first time in my entire life, realized that I was inadequate. There were people that belonged to that smell, that owned it, that created it, and goodness knows, those people weren’t me.

But I became that smell. I made it my own. And while I was never the best actress to grace Chatfield’s stage, I was passably good. I was affordably decent. I allowed the inhibition to succumb me and then I defeated it. Chatfield was my playground, my diploma a shiny trophy.

And yet here at college, at BYU, I am having difficulty finding my niche. I haven’t found the place that I belong, or a smell that embodies my potential. I haven’t earned any trophies. I am sure that I tire everyone around me with my persistent search for a major. I haven’t found complacency because I am not complacent. I am not complacent with mediocrity and mediocre is how I feel all the time.

I feel like, in college, I am a lot of nice ideas.
But a lot of failed endeavors.

Inhibition is the death to all creativity, of this I am convinced. Possibly this is why I have remained in this emotionally stunted state since my freshmen year of college. I am so terrified to do what I love because I can’t overcome this innate tendency to compare myself to others. If I were living in a world without anyone else, would I consider myself something special? Yes. Then why am I not special in real life? I can’t help but be plagued by the thoughts: What will you think of me? Did I fulfill my potential? That’s how Sierra Robinson turned out?

I feel like my inhibition is allowing me, no, cursing me into becoming an eternally faceless girl, keeping me from exploring who I truly want to become.

So who is it? Who is it that I truly want to become, minus the inhibitions, minus the scarring, minus the judgment and blemishes of others opinions?
I want to be a writer.
I want to be an appreciator of theater.
I want to change the world.
I want to speak French.
I want to forget what I got on the ACT.
I want to rid myself of these comparisons.
I want to not need to know how you did to know that I’ve done well.
I want to succeed by a new definition of success: my own.

When screams and squeals formerly elicited sheer panic and would cause me to hurl myself down whatever flight of stairs stood in between me and the p.i.d. (Person in Distress), since I moved into an apartment of six girls, such things now fail to excite. One could say that screams and squeals have become, in fact, commonplace. I have even started to distinguish the tone and volume of the scream/squeal. There’s the low-pitch grumble that builds to a roar which usually means that “someone ate my baked goods!” Or the bursts of squeals, that sounds over an over las if someone pressed the repeat button, which indicates that the squealer has gotten a good grade and/or a text message from the crush of the week. And then of course there’s the high-pitched jubilant screech, a yelp that could wake the dead and summon a dog which can only suggest one thing and one thing only–letter from a missionary! This is perhaps the reason that I did not stir when I heard the latter screech issue from our living room today. It took my roommate tearing up the stairs to inform me between gasps that: “There’s a lizard in our apartment,” to rouse my interest. Had I misinterpreted the wails from downstairs from missionary letter to reptile run amok?

I went downstairs to find that there was indeed a package from a missionary. My roommate Jessica stood over the box in disbelief. The box should have said, “Warning, large reptilian beast inside. Do not shake.” But instead, in a kind letter from a missionary friend, he kindly informed us that we had a new friend named Norman. Surely, a joke, we postulated. Surely he would not send a real lizard, and surely if he did, it would be dead by now. And while we convinced ourselves that quite certainly no one was stupid enough to send live animalia halfway across the United States, we still decided to best open the peanut butter jar outside, just in case. And sure enough, when we poured the contents of the peanut butter jar (with five holes poked carefully in the top of its cobalt blue lid), onto the picnic table, Little Norman scampered out, very much alive. We let out the “there’s a non-fluffy somewhat grotesque but oddly endearing animal in our midst scream” and took a step back. But it only took a moment to embrace Norman as part of little family at Love Potion # 9. We funneled him into our homemade pop bottle terrarium and put him on our mantle. We welcome and embrace our new pet.

For all you Australian missionaries out there, I’ll have you know I’m expecting my kangaroo by mail in the next month.

The Fourth of July is not like Valentine’s Day. The Fourth of July is a good holiday. The Fourth of July is, I daresay, the best holiday (besides my birthday, of course). For those who have read my sentiments about Valentines Day, I wish to inform you that I feel completely the opposite about this holiday! This is a day about hot dogs! About parades (which I was a participant in until about the age 18)! About warm summer breeze, and getting dark late! It’s about sparklers! Popsicles! It’s about fireworks! And you know, it’s kinda about America, I guess.

Most unlike Valentines Day, I have had a string of GREAT Fourth of July’s. To me, it’s the most romantic wonderful holiday there could possibly be. Not romantic in a lovey dovey, commercialized “I will send you a card with pink on it because I’m morally obligated to by Hallmark and St. Cupid,” but rather the 4th of July is romantic in an “I literally see fireworks when I kiss you,” sort of way. Not that this is the only reason that it’s romantic. Let’s not forget the hot dogs.

There was the countless Fourth of July’s in Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City. There were the numerous parades with my cousins, where we sported the blatantly false t-shirts reading “Everyone loves an American girl,” and formulated was the code names of “Baseball” and “Ice Cream,” for all the hot guys we saw. There were church breakfasts at Water’s Edge, and there was Transformers and a brilliant rainstorm after the best firework show of my life just last year. I feel like the Fourth of July is the holiday where I consistently spend with the most important people in my life. Let this year be no exception.

I am excited to announce, thanks to the lovely scheduling ladies at work, that I have this beautiful day off, and so I am going to do it up right, Utah style. Any suggestions for how I could possibly make this amazing holiday any better than it already is?