Utah: A pretty great state.

I think that used to be our advertising campaign. Or an option before they chose "Life Elevated," maybe.

Anyway, according to a study published in the Wall Street Journal we're the 4th most agreeable and conscientious state. We're top 10 (8th) in extraversion. We're slightly higher than middle of the pack (18th) in openness to new ideas. And we're the least neurotic state in the entire country.

Check it out. The flash maps are fun. (And, if you're not from Utah, you can find some fun things about your state, too.)

I'm a puppet; you can almost see the strings.

People always say that you should pay attention to what people DO, not what they say. That's a lesson I still need to learn.

Because I want to believe people. I want to think that people are honest and that they try to make what they say and what they do the same. I want to believe in the whole, "I'm as good as my word" idea.

Unfortunately, I've had to learn many times over, in unpleasant ways, that the world doesn't work that way.

Enter: today.

It's moments like this that I think, "I want to just leave all this behind and go somewhere else, do something else, be friends with other people." The best part about today? I am.

Oh lolli-lollipop

As I was walking to work today, I followed a woman with the most bouffant hair I've seen in some time. It was actually very pretty hair, and evident that she just had a lot of it -- not that she had spent all morning teasing it. However, she was also among the skinnest women I've ever seen. It caused her to look something like this:

(Note: While inspired by true events, the image below is merely representative, and is in no way meant to infringe upon the image rights of the aforementioned woman. Some aspects of the image were modified to protect the innocent. No animals were harmed in the making of this image.)



This made me think two things: 1) when you have that much curly hair, you should not be a stick. It's not natural. 2) I'm going to kind of miss high heels for the next few months.