I'll never not be sick forever.

Pneumococcal Pneumonia. 

When I was younger my brother told me it was the longest word in the whole world (I think because one of my grandmothers had it at the time?) 

It wasn't until just about 5 seconds ago when I looked it up that I realized it isn't even one word. 

It's two. 

And I don't have Pneumococcal Pneumonia. 

But I DO have regular kind of Pneumonia. 

Remember that "bad cough" I was talking about last post? Who knew?

I sure didn't. 

In fact, I was so annoyed that Cj and my mom were making me go to the doctor that I complained the whole way there about what a huge waste of money and time it all was. The wait at the doctor's office was super long and at some point CJ had to leave to go to class and I sat there like a grumpy grouch (who couldn't stop coughing) until the doctor called me back. 

I was a grumpy grouch while he listened to me breathe. 

A grumpy grouch while he forced me to get an x-ray for reasons I was not understanding. 

And then...I felt rather sheepish when he showed me the cloudy stuff in my lungs. 

Good thing Cj and doctors know just how to ignore my stubbornness. 

Meanwhile, all this coughing has put me in the mood for a funny story: 

(It's a women's flag football story. Which are the best kind.) 

So I'm on a team this semester with a bunch of girls who I have never met. 

My friend Jill invited my sister and me to come play and I showed up the first day, shook hands with my teammates, attempted to learn names, and stepped onto the field.
And there they were. 
Team Pretty in Pink.
It was 10 a.m. on a Saturday and they were wearing sparkly pink hair bows and black strips under their eyes (it was cloudy, mind you.)
This is a team that represents everything I hate about women's flag football.
I even wrote a book about it and provided the text of said book below for easy reading.

Lessons I would like to teach Team Pretty in Pink: 
#1. Pink+Football= Nothing.
 No seriously. Nothing. They don't go together. Nobody has ever thought that. Ever.

#2. Women's flag football does not require your quarterback to have a playbook on her arm.

#3. Your quarterback should not have a playbook on her arm if she runs over to the sideline between every play to ask the "coaches" (boyfriends) on the sideline what they should do.

#4. Stop it.

I was dreading playing this team because I was unsure how my team would fare (I'd just met them all) and losing to a team in pink who has to depend on boys to run the game for them makes me feel the same way Frodo looks after he gets bit by a giant spider.

That face is just about how I felt for the entire first half. The pink-heads scored three touchdowns to our one and we didn't even get the extra point. Things were looking bleak and their pink shorts were really starting to rub me the wrong way.

Our quarterback called us all in and called a play.
By some miracle (part of which involved one of the pink-faced girls literally jumping on my back as I ran. The nerve!) we scored a touchdown our first play back on the field.
Then, we scored another.
And another.

I could see their little pink cheeks turning red.
(Okay, now I'm just being rude, even if it is a little bit deserved, and even if they...were wearing pink! on a football field! don't they know??)

The game ended like this: 


We were up by one touchdown and they had the ball with 20 yards to go. If they scored they could tie or possibly even win.
My quarterback walked over to me.
"Ignore your man (woman)" she said. "Just go for the quarterback's flags."
I was nervous but I was going to do as I was told (what do I know about football really? I know you're not supposed to wear sparkles.)
The whistle blew...I ran as fast as I could (not very fast)...she was going to throw the ball to my open mark...I dove...

....and suddenly another whistle was blown and the game was over.
I was still laying on the ground from the dive but I looked up to see the quarterback standing there with her flags on the ground...ball still in her hands...and her pants on the ground.
Whoops.
It really was an accident.
But it was the most "poetic justice" accident that has ever happened.

Even the refs high-fived me.
And you just virtually high-fived me.
And I accepted.

Love,
Katie 

I must be dreaming.

When Cj and I first started dating we would talk about our yacht a lot. 

Besides the fact that "yacht" rhymes with "a lot," you might have noticed one other thing about that statement: 

We don't have a yacht. 

Which is fine, really. We just like to talk about it. 

For example: 

Me: "Hey Ceej, can we get one of these shark shaped submarine jet ski's Mark Titus told me about to keep on our yacht in case it ever sinks/we want to scare the children?" 

OR

Cj: "Boy do I love *Taco Bell. We should get one of these on our yacht."

*RIP the Beefy Crunch Burrito, except not on our yacht. it still exists there.

When we got engaged things shifted a bit. We went from mentally placing things on our pretend yacht, to mentally placing things on our pretend registry list. Again, examples: 

Cj: "We should register for unlimited Honey Nut Cheerios that will be spoon fed to us for the rest of our lives." 

Me: "We should register for not Katy Perry."  

Recently we've developed yet another way to carry on quirky, fake conversations. 

Birth control. 

I may or may not have spent a little too much time lately reading about the side effects of birth control. One night Cj and I got talking about it and decided that the list is so all-inclusive that we should just start blaming all problems on it. 

Here is a list of things that we have determined are a side-effect of birth control: 

being hungry

the irregular heating/cooling system in my apartment

the cough I currently have

insomnia

KONY 2012

ABC's "Once Upon a Time" (Never seen it, but I know it's birth controls fault shows like that exist)

bad weather

losing my flag football game

tired  

these pictures of Kobe Bryant 

Katy Perry 

I'm sure all three of these lists are not even close to an end. 

Nothing like pretending you are rich and/or blaming all your problems on modern medicine.  

All I know is, when I get that yacht we registered for, you're all invited for a BBQ. 

Love, 

Katie 

I mustache you a question...

(***CONFESSION: This is actually a post from over a month ago that I never got around to posting. If this offends you just consider it "vintage" and then it will feel trendy instead.)

So there I am, riding passenger side through Barstow, California on New Years Eve, sicker than a dog. 

I am wearing the same sweats that forced a middle aged man at the last gas station to tap me on the shoulder and say "you have...uh...something on your pants." 

To which I replied, "Thank you. I sat in Mayonnaise."

My head is wrapped up in the new faux-fur-throw (say that five times fast) that my Grandparents got me for Christmas (I'm that hard to shop for,) and I'm periodically moaning between waves of nauseousness as traffic spins circles around my driver who is trying his best to keep things steady and in my stomach. 

Said driver, who also happens to be my fiance, does the only thing he can do in the situation and puts on some calming Disney music, a cure-all for his family as well as for most of Mormon culture, one that produces annoyingly positive results despite my bitter cartoon-networky-protests.

We make it through the basics first: "The Bare Necessities," "Kiss the Girl," "A Whole New World." 

It isn't until we finish a Spanish version of "Colors of the Wind" (an ironic combo) that he can't take it anymore and bursts into song just in time for music from "Tangled" to come on. 

"...All those days chasing down a daydream
All those years living in a blur
All that time never truly seeing
Things, the way they were
Now she's here shining in the starlight
Now she's here, suddenly I know..."

I thought about the words he was singing for a second, thought about my mayo-stained predicament, and laughed until I almost threw up, and then silently giggled to myself for the rest of the drive. 

The ideas Disney puts into little heads.

They are wonderful, and beautiful and incredibly idealistic, and I guess that mayo probably would shine in the starlight, but I just can't imagine a fiance barfing in the passenger seat as they bypass the world's first Del Taco is any little boy (or girl's) daydream.

I guess I should clarify.

My children will definitely watch Disney movies. And I doubt all their hopes and dreams will be determined by what they see and hear in them (most little kids just think the horse is funny.)

I think what I'm trying to say is, I'd rather be laughing my blanket-wrapped head off in an X-Terra in the middle of the Mojave Desert than singing in a 2-Dimensional boat about my sparkling blur of a life to an 18 year old.

Somehow I resist this whole scene:

(sorry Brynn.)

In other news: I'm getting married next month.
Cool for me!

Love,

Katie