What were you doing?

I'm feeling inspired by the lovely and talented I I EEE tonight. She wrote a great post recently in response to a meme she caught from her sister. Apparently she was still contagious when I stopped in for a read, because now I've caught it too. Better cover your mouth—you might be the next one to get it.

What were you doing 20 years ago?

•I was a rising hair design starlette.(I know—you'd never suspect now.) I loved doing color, cuts, and shows. A big opportunity came my way, but I decided against it.
•Teaching part-time at Von Curtis Academies.
•I was makeup artist for a fashion photographer in Salt Lake. (Ditto the above parenthetical exclamation.)
•Seeing a fella who brought both blessings and extreme toxicity into my life, and who (a couple years later) introduced me to Rob. I will always be grateful for that.
•Dealing with my parents' divorce.
•Getting my life together.
•Posing for the best set of photo booth shots of my entire life (I have been a heavy user of photo booths most of my life.) They were so great that an older artist friend took them from me so he could draw my portrait(s). QUESTION: How come I only got to look that way once in my life? (Okay, four times, if you count each of the photos individually.)
•Drinking my first maté from a gourd through a silver straw.
•Living in the greatest apartment ever in the old Knight Mangum house on Center Street. Oh, that porch! AND it was on the parade route. But my upstairs neighbors flooded their apartment once and ruined some of my books and a piece of art I loved. Then again, I had a great Romeo and Juliet sort of bedroom window which allowed me to make dramatic escapes, and there was a secret passageway which also led underground to the outside through my closet; both of these were very important features for a strange, anti-social creature like myself.
•I lost my dad and then a dear friend to suicide, very close together.
•I developed a serious aversion to telephones that I still deal with today. I bought my first answering machine.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

•I'm so tired now from thinking of what happened 20 years ago, that I'm not certain my brain can calculate any more years properly.
•But.
•I was living with Rob (married) in a little dirt cheap ramshackle rental of a house with a tiny out-building which contained Tryst Press in all its claustrophobic glory.
•Taking a nap on the living room couch when a piece of ceiling fell down on me.
•That might have been the year I duct taped every window and door of our house once when I freaked out over an earwig invasion.
•Gardening.
•Renewing a dear friendship with a bestie from high school whose life was by then almost the polar opposite of mine.
•Working in Young Women as stake camp assistant.
•Online journalling. (It was called Cinema 13.)
•Seeing through the center of the block into my in-laws' kitchen window from my front porch.
•Trying to adjust to the change of having my grandmother nearby and very needy, and becoming her caretaker.

What were you doing on 9/11?

•I was sitting in the backroom of our new house, working on the computer when Rob came in and told me what he'd just heard on the radio. We looked it up on our Mac (didn't have a TV then), saw what we could, and I went into shock.
•I cried a lot. And prayed.
•My girlfriend called from L.A. and my sister-in-law called too, but I wasn't able to talk at all. I was beyond words for quite a while.
•Rob and I went to my grandmother's and watched the tragedy replayed over and over on CNN. I was hypnotized by grief and disorientation.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

•Spending more and more time taking care of my grandmother, and we were getting near to having her move in with us.
•Struggling with a lot of illness centered in my reproductive system, and had major surgery.
•Back in school, studying photography.
•I was a bishopric counselor's wife. (They must not run background checks on the wives, huh?)
•I was released as ward Young Women president (my second stint) and made ward historian. (I'm still doing that job, even though I'm back in YW again too.)
•Playing Scrabble.
•Eating at Chuck-A-Rama and Golden Corral against my will, with regularity.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

•Getting through the aftermath of one of the most difficult experiences of my life.
•Dreaming of moving to coastal Oregon.
•Trying to purge my basement (still haven't finished).
•Blogging.

What did you do yesterday?

•Woke up singing Vampire Weekend's "Mansard Roof" and listened to as many versions as I could on YouTube.
•Spent almost the whole day writing, and had a great time.
•Turned off the phone's ringer and call-screening, and popped in new earplugs so I wouldn't get distracted.
•After Rob left to go hiking with his brother, I built a nice fire in the woodstove, pulled my dog's pillow close by, and the two of us hung out while I wrote.
•Drank hot rice milk with Pero and carob.
•Listened to StoryCorps podcasts while I took a lunch break, and then iChatted with a childhood girlfriend for a little while.
•Attended a concert with Rob in the evening: the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, from Croatia. They were fantastic!
•Listened to a friend's dream and kept my interpretation to myself.
•Finished my very first little film script, submitted it to a small competition, and made the postmark deadline with no more than a minute to spare. (This is big, but only because it represents my for once keeping a promise I made to myself.)
•Stayed up so late that I had a big fat headache all day today.

What am I doing today?

•Fasted and prayed.
•Made us late for church, received the sacrament.
•Sang "Mansard Roof" in the hallways at church, and at my in-laws'. (Rob's mum says I have an earworm.)
•Ran around in the rain and my hair went wonky.
•Wore too many shades of red, and loved it.
•Did rapid walking laps at church, with my sister-in-law who needed some love therapy.
•Again, kept my interpretation of friend's dream to myself.
•Listened to Leslie Norris recordings and shared them with a friend in Boston.
•Went for a walk in the moody wet to watch the rosy sun go down.
•Held a fat baby.
•Had a big discussion with Rob about Prop 8, politics, and Tuesday's election.
•Passed on my own piece of chocolate cake, and ate some of Rob's instead.
•Listened to my Rob as he unloaded a sad heart.
•Learned the guitar chords to "Mansard Roof."
•Staying up late again, apparently. [sigh]

What will I do tomorrow?

•Make soup to eat now and freeze for later. Something Mediterranean.
•Play guitar.
•Do laundry.
•Think about pie.
•Go for a walk.
•Build another fire.
•Write.
•Forget to use spell-check.
•Tackle a pile in the basement.
•Maybe sell a couch.
•Borrow Ray's rototiller and chop up either: (1) just the garden, or (2) the entire backyard?
•Read.
•Have Family Home Evening with Rob and possibly someone else.
•Clean the bathroom? Nah.

<