They met each other's eyes and saw to infinity. Avoidance tactics had finally been exhausted.

Second Installment of "Dealing with Awkward Situations and Not Getting Burned, Only a Little Charred" series:
Dealing with Awkward Things that Happen in Passing


Awkward Situation #1: You are approaching someone you know from a long distance and you don't know the appropriate time to initiate contact


Classic n00b mistake: You say hi too early and then share way too many seconds of uncomfortable silence, or you say hi too late and the person is already well on their merry way and done deciding you are a raging douche for not saying hi.


How to avoid this misfortune: Do not make eye contact with the person until the appropriate distance has been covered. Create the illusion that you have a perfect-timing mechanism installed in your brain by looking busy until the opportune "oh hey didn't see you there" moment has arrived. Modern technology has given us cellphones not only to make it easier for the wicked tax people to find us, but to make us look like we are busy with something important. I used this one all through high school and I successfully had no friends. You may also choose to tie your shoe or greet another passerby. Just make sure you are wearing shoes with laces or that the person you greet actually knows who you are, or you could be creating a whole new world of awkward for yourself. 


Awkward Situation #2: Someone you don't know waves/bro-nods at the person behind you, and because you are awkward, you wave/bro-nod back


Classic n00b mistake: You apologize. Heaven forbid you try to explain your actions to the passerby, you have just descended to a level of awkward only the likes of myself and Michael Cera have ever experienced. 

Totally done this. I'm sure it didn't end well for either of us.

How to avoid this misfortune: The easy way out is to pretend it didn't happen, but you have to accept that pretending something awkward didn't happen will ALWAYS leave you charred. The better option is to pretend that you are waving/bro-nodding to the person behind the person who just waved/bro-nodded to the person behind you. It's a dead simple gambit, really. Pick someone. Make up someone. Whatever you do, just pretend that you are reeeealllly happy to see them.


Your second option is to go along with it and follow-up with a "Hey how's it goin' Jerry?"
WHO'S AWKWARD NOW, BETCH?!?!?!


Awkward Situation #3: You start having a conversation with someone, and after way too long you realize they are talking on one of those bluetooth headset thingies


Classic n00b mistake: You walk away. Not so fast champ, you get to be creative here.


How to avoid this misfortune: Easy peasy fo sweezy. Just pretend you are talking on a bluetooth headset thingy too. Enough people have them these days that it's totally plausible, and you only have to pretend to be pompous-ass techie for a few seconds before you're allowed to walk. The best way to pull it off is to take the fake conversation to the most outlandish place you can possibly think of. Here is a sample of a bluetooth-to-bluetooth conversation pulled off brilliantly:
Bluetoother: Hey, how you doin?
Awkward Person: I'm doing okay, but how bout this weather, yeah?!
BT: Good good. Hey tell Chareese to put those files on my desk and I'll pick 'em up at noon 
AP ( who has just realized bluetoother is bluetoothing and doesn't actually care how he is doing):  
I said no way Abel! Trident Layers does not count as adequate compensation, no matter how many private islands you own! (puts hand to ear and storms away)


If you're lucky, the bluetoother won't have even realized you were there. But let's be serious, you're way too appallingly awkward to not be noticed. And this guy is on bluetooth, he's probably someone important who will be withholding a job from you in the near future.


*None of these guidelines apply if you start having a conversation with a person who is Skyping.Then you're just screwed and the other person thinks you're a nut forever. I speak from true experience on this one, burn marks don't lie


Awkward Situation #4: You are a humble pedestrian trying to cross the street, and an angry motorist is about to turn into the crosswalk you are trying to use (because you are a law-abiding citizen who uses crosswalks)


Classic n00b mistake: You wait for the motorist to go. Because then the motorist will wait for you. You proceed to do a pedestrian-motorist dance in which you will both go and stop at the same time, waving your arms at each other like fools, and making all parties involved grumpy and irritated.


How to avoid this misfortune: Cross the street the other way. Go back the way you came. Take a sidestreet. Do whatever you have to do to look like you have a destination that is somewhere other than across that crosswalk. Once the motorist is out of sight, you can go the way you intended to go and everyone is happy. 




I hope this guide was helpful to some of you. The next installment of the series will be:
"Cautionary Tales: what NOT to do"

Under the dark, velvety cover of night, we escape to the world of dreams, a place that is never as restful as we hope

During our weekly Bountiful Boulevard Sunday Stroll, over a chorus of "Nice bum where you from!" from low-IQ jailbait high school boys, Danica Nicole Moran suggests that I write a comprehensive guide to dealing with awkward situations because I've been in so many of them and emerged triumphant. I check the dictionary.com definition of "triumphant" from my imaginary iPhone and it doesn't say anything about wounded dignity or people sometimes thinking you have a speech impediment. But I decide to write a comprehensive guide to dealing with awkward situations even though I evidently can't deal with them myself. It's kind of like how they say the best therapists are the kind of people who hide babies in dumpsters or have unresolved Oedipus complexes.  

First Installment of "Dealing with Awkward Situations and Not Getting Burned, Only a Little Charred" series:

Dealing with Awkward Things that Happen While You're Asleep

(I realize this is a weird one to start with, just go with it)

Awkward Situation #1: You fall asleep on your arm and it goes completely dead

Your first thought upon waking might be: OMFG WHOSE ARM IS IN MY BED RIGHT NOW?!

How to deal with it:

• Remain calm. Check to make sure the arm is actually attached to your body without actually looking at the arm so you don't have to think about how weird it is that it's not moving. 
• If the arm is attached to your body:
• Scooch to the edge of the bed (or couch if you have transgressed against your partner) and use your undead arm (zombie arm ooooOOOOooo) to toss your dead arm over the side so the fingers are pointing towards the ground.
• As the blood creeps creepily back into your arm, twitch your fingers one by one to determine whether or not they are receiving messages from your brain yet. If they are not, repeat steps 1 and 2.
• Resume sleeping.

• If the arm is not attached to your body:
• If it's not your arm, scream, cry, puke, pass out or whatever you have to do, then run away and call 911 immediately because THERE IS A &%*# ARM IN YOUR BED.
• If it is your arm, stifle the bleeding and report to the hospital immediately. Embark on your new life as an amputee. Make a cardboard sign and find a high-traffic underpass for street peddling. 

Awkward Situation #2: You crunch up one of your blankets at the foot of the bed and in your delirious state, you cannot seem find it

Your first thought upon waking might be: OMFG THE BLANKET SNATCHER IS AT LARGE

How to deal with it:

• Remain calm. Try your best to remember if you actually even had the blanket when you went to sleep. Neglecting to do this is a common blanket-cruncher mistake which causes undue anxiety.
• As sleep-delirium subsides, use your dominant foot to do a sweep of the foot of the bed to find any crunched up fabric.
• To re-cover yourself with the blanket, do what I coined three seconds ago as the "caterpillar": hook the blanket around your foot and bring your knee to your chest. Then use your hands to grab the blanket and spread it over yourself.
• Resume sleeping.

Awkward Situation #3: You expel some kind of bodily fluid 

(I can think of 9, can you name them all?)

Your first thought upon waking might be: OMFG HOW DID I NOT NOTICE UNTIL NOW?!

How to deal with it:

• Remain calm. Try to determine which bodily fluid it is. You may have to do a sniff test, which is super gross but often necessary. You may also have to use common sense: for example, if only your pillow is wet, it is most likely not pee. And if it IS pee, congratulations on pulling that off because that must have involved some pretty spectacular sleep-acrobatics.
• If it is a harmless fluid such as sweat, drool, or tears
• Change your sheets/pillowcase if you deem it necessary. Turn on the A/C (or take your menopause medication), close your mouth, fix your broken heart, or make any other necessary accommodations to ensure that it won't happen again. Resume sleeping.
• If it is ANYTHING ELSE (*it should be noted that this has never actually happened to me, so don't assume that I'm speaking from experience here):
• If you are a nasty person with terrible hygiene, resume sleeping.
• If you have any self-respect, remove sheets/blankets/all affected areas at once to avoid seepage. If someone else is in the bed with you, wake them up and tell them a brilliantly crafted lie that will get them out of bed and into a garage or closet, which you will lock them in for approximately fifteen minutes. Take everything off the bed, throw it in the bathtub, dump some Shout over the top of it, and turn the water on. When it's kinda clean, drape all linens awkwardly over the furniture to dry. Make SURE to wash them properly in the washing machine on a warm cycle at your earliest convenience.
• Replace linens, fetch your bed mate from the garage or closet, and resume sleeping if you can forgive yourself.

Awkward Situation #4: Your partner/person you are forced to share a bed with due to space limitations is a compulsive covers-hogger

Your first thought upon waking might be: OMFG I'M SO COLD RIGHT NOW

How to deal with it:

• Remain calm. Do not wake up the other person. The point is to be the least rude you possibly can. You are not the villain here. They are. 
• If there is something else you can cover yourself with. i.e., a blanket that is not currently in use, a towel, a sweatshirt, a cat, use that. Then the other person will feel bad the whole next day while you assert that "really, it's fine. I was fine."
• If there is no adequate covers-substitute readily available:
• Do not pull the covers away all at once. A huge yank will wake the other person up and begin a covers war that you are much too passive to win. You must recover the covers (hehe) by degrees. 
• To do this, grab a corner or whatever slice of the covers you can get your mildly hypothermic hands on and (slowly!) pull it towards you. Then you must roll onto your other side. Then wait a few moments and do it again. Doing this will gradually unroll the covers off the other person and onto yourself. If the other person wakes up, they will assume you are just harmlessly sleep-rolling and will be more likely to forgive you. 
• Once you are adequately covered, resume sleeping. 

Stay tuned for the next installment of "Dealing with Awkward Situations and Not Getting Burned, Only a Little Charred" series with "Dealing with Awkward Things that Happen in Passing."

"If music be the food of love, play on," Will Shakespeare wrote, a line he borrowed from Brett's 4th grade diary

Tic Tac mutha effin' Toe, Three 'na Row! I know incessa-blogging is sooooper obnoxious, but this stuff just comes into my head while I'm out diligently training for the Legacy Half Marathon (I had  to slip that in there) and I just don't know what else to do about it. 

Anyway, I have to don my hypercritical know-it-all pants (I said I was sorry, Mam!) for this post because it is about song lyrics. Since I spend most of my day every day listening to songs, singing songs, writing songs, coming up with ideas for songs, or any combination of those things, I have pretty much ascended to the pinnacle of pretentious douchery as it pertains to song lyrics. Just typing that sentence made me feel like a huge bitch-I-hate-myself, and I'm okay with that. 

I like to listen to the radio when I'm driving in my car. It gives me a sense of community, like I'm connected to something bigger, or some kind of romanticized bull like that. And I do this knowing FULL WELL that most of the songs on the radio suck balls. Occasionally they'll toss a good one into the mix to keep snobs like me tuned in, but mostly Top 40 radio stuff speaks volumes to the 8th grade education of the three boneheads sitting inside RCA Records coming up with lyrics like "Jesus on my neck-a-lus-us-us." 

Jesus, if you're reading this, please stay far away from Ke$ha's neck-a-lus-us-us, and in fact, anything that is associated with...Her? It? Her?

I am consoled by reminding myself that there are still some awesomely genuine and talented singer-songwriters on the radio, and then I hear this:


"You make me wanna say I do
I do
I do do do do do do do do"

Aw HELL naw. 

Not only are those lyrics super annoying, they make me want to make so many poop jokes that I don't even know what to do with myself.

Come on now Colbie. What is that? How could she write such crappy lyrics? Look how cute she is!

On the other hand, she wrote some pretty amazeballs lyrics for songs like "One Fine Wire" and "Droplets," so I'll let this one slide.


These Cobra Starship lyrics, however, are unpardonable:


"You make me feel like la la la la la"

I had so many questions, so I took to the streets* and asked some partakers of hard drugs what "la la la la la" feels like. They told me it feels kind of like the ground is water and everyone is a silver clamshell named Hollis that wants to stake you in the heart. I then asked them if they had ever done drugs with Cobra Starship, and they said that they had not.

*This didn't actually ever happen

I switch to another station and I get the great pleasure of listening to "Give Me Everything" for the 952nd time, and I cringe just like I did the first 951 times when I hear the line

"Got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan"

And I'm like, oh girl, hold up.  

Did Pitbull for reals just compare himself with America's most despised redheaded, cracked-out, sometimes-incarcerated, child-star-turned-monumental-train-wreck?

WHY WOULD ANYBODY EVER DO THAT EVER??? 

I see no resemblance

I'm not about to claim that all crap lyrics come from Top 40. I sang in the Occidental College Glee Club (I say with equal parts pride and shame) this past year and we were forced to sing one or two or three appalling selections, like this one that slipped through the sensors because it is cleverly disguised in Spanish:

"Y si negro no se due'me, viene diablo blanco y zas! Le come la patica chica bu"

Which loosely translates to mean:

"If the black kid doesn't go to sleep, the white devil is going to come and boo! Eat his little feet" 

Question mark.

That's what I imagine Hell to be like.

Fortunately that, whatever that is, was counterbalanced with gems such as "America" by Paul Simon, a gorgeous narrative of two wistful beatniks such as myself *snicker*  trying to find themselves as they travel across our great country.  Homie Paul's lyrics crack my heart like an egg and let the contents run unfettered into my chest cavity. That means they're good, in case my graphic metaphor didn't resonate with you.

All I'm saying is that we have this beautiful and humane gift of language that can give life or death to the even beautiful-er and humane-er gift of music, and if the lyrics are going to spell death for the music, I would rather not hear them at all.

Like, actually though. Slice of truth.

I would rather listen to a sick track sans vocals than a sick track that is disgraced by Enrique wailing "Tonight I'm f**kin yoooooou" over the top of it.  Because, okay Enrique, maybe you are planning on f**kin me tonight, but right now I'm just trying to drive to Rite-Aid to snag some Suave Naturals and I'm not really dying to hear about it.

Although I may eventually want to hear about it

CAVEAT. All of this should be taken with a grain or maybe a large barrel of salt because as it turns out, I'm actually NOT the ultimate authority on "good" songs. I've been pretty emotionally invested in the show "Platinum Hit" on Bravo (Johnny and Jes ftw <333333), and sometimes the contestants write a song that I think is totes rad (and I definitely say "totes rad"), but then Jewel and Kara are like "That was the worst song I've ever heard." So I think it's kind of a crapshoot.

But as for radio songs, someone please get some professionals in the studio with these poor fools and write some songs that will give me hope for humanity whilst I drive to Rite-Aid on a Wednesday. 

And that's how Brett "C's" it.

If you don't watch Glee, dishonor on you and your family

So I'm going to take off my hypercritical know-it-all pants and put my XXL boxer shorts back on.

I'm taking a small hiatus from the blog for the rest of the week because I have important stuff to do, but next week we will return to your regularly scheduled hot mess with some funny stories about things that have happened to me in my life as a result of having abysmal social skills.

Until then, chaps. 

She was the fairest in the land, or at least that's what self-help books and the Mormon church let her believe

I'm writing another post already because I'm still in the honeymoon phase of blogging and also because I don't have anything else to do.

*Warning: This post contains what some refer to as "oversharing." Proceed with caution and a good remembrance of how you thought of me before reading this


When I woke up this morning (at 11:30, my life is so much better than yours), the first thing I did was weigh myself. I didn't mean to do it, there was very little forethought, it just happened.
And much to my dismay....
I gained four pounds.


Let me preface this by saying that I am not, nor have I ever been, nor will I (probably) ever be, fat. Because even though I have the appetite of a half-grown dinosaur, my very athletic family and upbringing have led me to be a compulsive exerciser. I guess one could say that I am intrinsically motivated (Kinesiology 104 jargon, don't worry about it) to turn myself into a sweaty, gasp-y beast 4-6 times a week. It took me a whole extra year to gain the freshman 15. When I played tennis for Oxy my first year (let's be serious, I didn't actually play), I was surprised to find that I was one of the most in-shape girls on the team. I was also one of the only ones who never showed up to practice hungover, but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, gaining four pounds wouldn't faze me that much if I hadn't spent the last three weeks slicing up veggies, hiding sugary things from myself, and busting my arse at the gym. To clarify, I am NOT on a diet. Diets don't work. When someone tells me they're on a diet, I immediately picture them crying over SELF magazine in a dark confined space with chocolate and cake crumbs slopped all over their face. I simply decided to make some simple lifestyle adjustments that will persist through my adulthood and keep me lean and mean when my monstrous metabolism finally burns out. I am also hoping that this will finally get rid of the Abominable Pudge once and for all.

The Pudge is an indestructible layer of visceral fat that that for the past five years has been eclipsing my super jacked abs that I am POSITIVE exist. Due to a common hormonal disorder that most women opt not to talk about because it sometimes involves half-transforming into a werewolf at the full moon, the Pudge slowly covered my midsection during puberty when I should have been getting boobs.

Although I despise the Pudge, I have to admire its tenacity and iron will. It has spent more time with me than any boy ever has. In fact, the only time it disappeared was for a few months during senior year when I was so absorbed in my own life that I forgot food was a thing and sucked down great troughs of Diet Lipton like the Elixir of Life. Which, of course, it is.

Granted this was after a 14 hour drive and all I'd eaten was a Fruit by the Foot

I had the worst idea in the world to confide in Miles about my new "lifestyle changes." If you don't know Miles, he weighs at most 125 pounds and eats roughly 2.5 calories a day, which he immediately expends being a cheeky douchemonger.

In case you forgot which one he is. He couldn't finish that cupcake.

 After I told him all about it via facebook chat, our conversation went more or less like this:

M: You would seem funnier if you were fat
B: ??
M: Yeah. Steve Farley
B: Surely you mean Chris
M: Yeah...Chris
B: *massive exaggerated facepalm*
M: Your humor would be received better if you were fat
B: Or I could just lose 20 pounds and be super hot
M: Maybe if you get more fat you'll get some boobs. Silver lining
B: Why am I even talking to you? You're a dude. You could eat a couch and metabolize it in  30 seconds

Steve Farley, the brother Chris didn't want to talk about

I obviously can't turn to my friends for support. So I turn to Andra. An aerobics instructor of 25 ish years, she is still a super ripped babe at 51. She will be a good motivator because when she was in her 20s she looked like she came straight out of a Girls Girls Girls music video:

The story about how this picture made my mother a porn star at Oxy is yet to come

I know, I know, I'm not Andra. I could never be Andra, for a lot of reasons:

1. She wears a D cup
2. She could bench press a lion
3. She works at a gym. I hate gyms. I hate working out at gyms. I hate the people who populate gyms. Nothing makes my eyes roll further back into my head than the pseudo-bunnies who come to work out in trucker hats and fake tits or the bro-tools who show up to pump some gnarly iron in flip-flops or these things:

Formed a League of Evil Footwear with Crocs to make you feel wonderful but look like a dumbass

I would rather go for a hike in the sunshine with McPuppers

His real name is Ollie

or box it out in a ring with a super jacked European guy while Sum 41 plays in the background.
4. Andra does the snack n' graze. I like to do the snack n' graze too, but in addition to snacking and grazing I like to sit down to a huge platter of charred gorilla meat at mealtimes.


The thing is, Andra doesn't want me to be her. 
Andra wants me to do things that make me feel good about myself.

So if wearing a PowerBalance bracelet and drinking protein shakes on the reg doesn't make me feel good about myself, I'm not about to do it.

If listening to an anorexic chick in a bra-top and custom made Nike trainers yell "Abs tight, ladies!" at me while I choke on lactic acid from my own glutes (more Kines jargon) doesn't make me feel good about myself, I'm not about to do it. 

If getting 20-30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio 5 days a week for health-related fitness or 60-90 minutes 6 days a week for weight maintenance like Professor negative-four-percent-body-fat Houston of Kinesiology 104 says still doesn't make me feel good about myself, then dammit to hell, I'm not doing it.


Everyone should do things that make them feel beautiful no matter what, even when they're not wearing makeup, which for me has been pretty much every day for the past two months.

This is for all you guys who claim to prefer the "natural look," which, for the record, is NONE of you. Make sure you know what you're talking about before you make such outrageous claims

For me, I feel most beautiful when I am wearing loose-fitting tops and singing songs I wrote for close friends and the baristas in otherwise empty coffee shops.

Me performing my sexy hit single "S&M" at Oxy's premiere cafe

So I guess the moral of my story is that pounds come and go, but positive self-esteem is forever.


Unless, of course, you get dumped, laid off, or excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


And btdubs, those four pounds were most likely muscle....

"I am funny dammit!" she cried, and an awkward silence ensued

The time has finally come....
Or maybe the time is long overdue.

For me to take my first foray into the world of the time-wasti--I mean, blogging. If you tab me religiously on the facebook, you know I had started a blog-of-sorts using the notes application but deleted them all unexpectedly when I got accused of brazenly oversharing.

Wha?

You mean we don't live in a world where it is perfectly acceptable, nay, encouraged to document and publish every worthless thought we have for approximately 1,542,769,457 internet users worldwide to see and ridicule (I googled that number, not ashamed)?

No, we definitely still live in that world. And I intend to be a hugely annoying internet presence, because I, for one, think I am very funny.
Hilarious.
I crack myself up. All the time. 
And I have to do my best to assert that I am effing hysterical because I am flanked on all sides by people who are much cooler than me.


There's little bro, who is some kind of all-star athlete 6'7" mutant baby.

Not to scale

And big bro, who has a sucky personality but is a super legit graphic-novelist prodigy and looks like this:

More pretentious model-shots of big bro looking ansgsty available upon request

And then there's me:

and these ones capture my essence well, I think:

To get the spaz look instantly and cheaply, look serious and add pink sunglasses

So you see the problem. Humor is really all I have to fall back on. I fancy myself to be a perfectly mediocre singer-songwriter (visit www.reverbnation.com/brettannlalli to hear somma my jams), but I hardly plan to make my livelihood playing music. The most money I've ever made from playing music was $11 in tips at a farmer's market in Park City, and $10 of it was from my dad, who was only there because he didn't want me to drive up the canyon alone*. 

*The Yetti currently resides in Lambs Canyon, and sometimes he comes down to the highway on his Vespa to snatch unsuspecting post-adolescent girls out of their shiny red Nissan Versas and sprinkle their guts into his afternoon tea


Speaking of my parents, Matt and Andra (I call them by their first names to assert my adulthood), they are pragmatic, good-looking, salt-of-the-earth kind of people who only ever had two expectations of their only daughter:
1. Don't be a pretentious know-it-all (sorry Mam but I really DO know everything!)
2. Be a good Mormon (shit damn ass-balls, I have failed as a daughter)


I suspect that they don't really have a lot on me to brag about at Matt's firm parties.

"Well, erm, yes we do have a daughter. She's at school in LA doing...things and stuff... She used to play the cello when she was 13!"

Yo Yo Ma-rvelous circa 2003

I think my parents love me like Hagrid loves baby dragons. Knowing they will take the rap when I destroy a village someday but for now they love me because I'm misunderstood and kinda sweet sometimes.


I also should say somewhat concerning my beautiful friends. My friends, friends, magnificent friends! Who have stuck with my through thick and thin in the hopes that I will DD for another weekend or because their name is Joyce Lee!

(I will now insert a stream of pictures of my darling friends doing funny things and being darling because they speak for themselves) 

Library-ing with Joyce

Fro Yo with Tehya

Sexy Loungey time with Miles

Spicy Halloweener with Mel and Kel, respectively

French Bread Walkie Talking with Joyce

Cheeto Puffs/Crack with Kai

Hypothermia with Katie G

Vday with Gregory

Being a super Jew with Evan and Molly

Celebrating our nation's birthday but really just wanting to be watching nerd movies with Lexa

Pretending to be a mop/hiking with Joyce

Having some kind of a fiesta with Jake

Looking mostly civilized with Danica Nicole Moran

Showmancing with McKail and Eric

Playing salon with Jack and Lizzy

Partying really hard with the Accidentals

Growing mustaches with Miles

Getting some unprotected UV exposure and most likely cancer with Margeurite

Crazy volcano raw fish-munching with Lakyn

I think that's probably enough for now.


Stay tuned for some more really shunny fit.