New.

I'd just like you all to know that I have a cell phone now. I gave in to the peer pressure. :)

Go London!

London beat out Paris for the 2012 Olympics! That makes me happy. London is my favorite city in the whole world.

Second job for the summer

I believe I have just secured a job with BYU catering. I'll be serving lemon chicken and green beans to EFY kids and foreign dignitaries in no time. Last week they served the president of Iceland. That's pretty freaking cool. They say I may get to serve some General Authorities as well. I'm excited about this one.

A word from the eldest one.

My sister, the oldest one who is married with two children (cutest nieces on the planet) told me today that I am her favorite sibling to talk to. It felt really good to hear that. I'm honored to be special to her in that way. She said it was funny because I was really annoying as a little kid (very, very true, and perhaps still true) :)
I love my family, especially as unique, individual people and not just a whole.

Ugly Children.

Alas, my childhood is explained!
Upon Tolkien Boy's request, (almost more of a threat really) I am posting this article:
Study on Ugly Children

Getting a good look at things.

viewer

My little brother...in San Francisco with my best friend...

Alex: "We went to hooters!"
Me: "LOL"
Alex: "Don't tell mom!"
Alex: "I'm gonna have to develop the pictures without her seeing them..."
Alex: "It was cool cuz I got all the girls together in one picture with me in the middle. Obviously they do it all the time so they didn't mind or anything"
Me: "That's hilarious, man, so great."
Alex: " :D "

Hello.

Hello.

He'll never stop us...muahaha!

stop children

Carnegie.

carnegie

Waltzing Matilda...

Smile like you mean it.

smile

The Dance.

dancers

Kudos if you know the story behind this picture.

Hehehe.

I have decided that this week shall be picture week.

lawnmower.jpg

To everyone, including myself. Read yourself in as needed.

1. No, don't feel bad now. The time for feeling sorry for yourself is over. Pick up the pieces of your soul, purge them in the hell that has been waiting for you, and get on with it.

2. Goodness shouldn't be some fantasy in your head. Prove yourself in the moment. Hiding behind your own glorified image of yourself and what you think your future should be will leave you afraid and pathetic to everyone but yourself and those trapped in the fantasy world you have created.

3. Quit tripping over the shortcomings of other people. Cursing them does you as much good as cursing a wet floor, marble, or crack in the sidewalk. They are small, insignificant, not worth your time...and you should have been looking out for them in the first place. Dust yourself off and keep walking. Whatever you do, don't get angry.

4. You are not as enigmatic as you think.

I swear I meet the strangest people.

So at about 2 AM this morning I took a walk as I often do in the middle of the night.

I was meandering down 9th east when the only car on the street pulled over by my side.

I squinted into the window to see a short Mexican man with a giant mullet. He gave me a look like a lost puppy and asked me where the nearest hospital was. I was panicked at first, thinking he must be in dire trouble, so I started giving him directions and he got frustrated and confused and asked me to get in his car to help him find it.

Against all my better judgement and as the foolish bleeding heart person that I am, I got into his car. It was messy and smelled like alcohol. The stereo was playing old disco era music. He asked me if I had a bud and I told him I didn't. I started giving directions and learned through the man's awkward gibberish (speech worn down by years of drug use) that he was trying to visit his girlfriend to comfort her in the hospital as her mom was dying. He was from Salt Lake City and didn't know where anything was around Provo. I felt really bad for him. He seemed really frustrated, worried and tired so I tried to help as best I could.

We got to the hospital and drove around for a while trying to find his girlfriend who was supposed to be waiting outside. We couldn't find her anywhere, so I suggested that we go see if we could page her at the reception desk. We went in and I talked to a receptionist and a security guard trying to get a hold of this man's girlfriend or see if we could page her (neither seemed to think very highly of the man I was with who smelled like beer and talked like he was on crack, so I did all the talking), but because the man couldn't remember the last name of his girlfriend's mother, our attempts were in vain. We walked around some more and I kept leading this man through all of these logical steps to find his girlfriend (drive around the building again, look for her truck outside, get some change for a payphone, call her cell, etc) After trying all of these things, we still could not get a hold of this woman. The man looked like he was going to cry. I told him we had tried and that I wasn't sure what else we could do. He kept repeating that to himself, "I tried man, I mean s**t! I tried, what else am I supposed to do dawg?" and "I gotta get home and get some sleep, f**k!" I told him he ought to try calling his girlfriend again when he got home and at least leave a message saying what happened. He muttered some and we walked out to his car.

He told me he would give me a ride home so I got in his car again. He pumped up the volume on his disco music and said he was hungry, so we stopped at a McDonalds. He asked me if I wanted anything and I told him I was fine, but he kept insisting that I get something. I finally told him I'd get a Big Mac. He ordered two Big Macs for me. I started eating them even though I wasn't hungry, and he asked for directions to the freeway and then dropped me off at home. I wished him the best of luck with all sincerity, gave him props, and took the remains of my Big Mac into my apartment. I sat down and wrote this blog trying to figure out why all of these strange people have entered my life this week. I don't get it but it makes me smile and also gives me this odd sort of concern for these people I don't think I will ever see again. I suppose I need to realize something from all of this. I need to get to bed now.

Barbara.

Tonight Smurf wanted to go borrow "Lost in the Woods" from the Harold B. Lee Library and watch it for his final night in Utah. Wiggle picked he and I up and we drove to BYU. We walked through the Wilkinson center and I decided to go pick up some soup at the Cougareat because I've been feeling sick today. I told Wiggle and Smurf that I would meet them in the glass atrium at the library, and so we parted ways. I picked up two servings of soup at the Cougareat because they were half-off. One minestrone and one potato. I gingerly walked (tonight was the last night of EFY and there were teenagers everywhere) from the Wilk to the library, soup in hand, and sat down on the grass outside the glass building where I thought Wiggle and Smurf would be able to spot me. And spotted I was.

Enter Barbara Hall.

Barbara Hall was a short, very elderly lady with short grey hair in a classy blue dress suit with a white scarf. She was leaving the library when she spotted me sitting on the ground in a blue sweatshirt and beanie. She jokingly asked if I was a vagabond and started to have a conversation. I smiled and made polite responses as I sat eating my soup. This woman was brilliant, but a little lonely and quite possibly a little insane (just the way I like my people). She quoted Russian literature and Shakespeare and classic old songs. She had so much knowledge to share with me that my mind felt like a sponge being thrown into the Pacific.

She asked cutely if I had a girlfriend or had been here dancing with the EFY kids. I grinned and told her I hadn't. She asked me if I had ever had a girlfriend. It was all very amusing because this was coming from an old woman I had never known. I smiled again and told her I had dated several girls in high school and a few in college, but never had a steady girlfriend...

Then the conversation took several turns before she asked me to dance with her...in the quad outside the library at BYU.

I thought for just a second, and figured it couldn't hurt anything, and I'm gay so I really wouldn't mind. So we danced. We danced the Cha-Cha and the Swing and the Waltz for a good while right outside the library in Brigham's Square. We were both having the time of our life. EFY kids started staring and whipping out their cameras and taking pictures of us.

Even without music or a ballroom, it felt like we were Fred Estaire and Ginger Rogers, something out of a movie. We were off in our own little world, an elderly lady and an 18 year old kid. It was very surreal and quite the spectacle to behold.

When Smurf and Wiggle walked out of the library, they stared in bewilderment at the two of us dancing and then walked by into the Wilk to watch and wait and talk to Smurf's EFY counselor friends about how they were waiting for crazy friend Pinetree to get done dancing in the quad with a woman who was probably in her 70's or 80's.

The lady asked me to walk her to her car (a Starsky and Hutch special, yellow and brown) in the twilight, so I did. Smurf and Wiggle were a little surprised when I left and took off after a few moments of waiting. Barbara and I talked for another while about everything from geneaology to foreign relations to her own life. She was captain of the cheerleading squad in high school and her boyfriend was the student body president. She reminisced about how they had ruled the school together, and then how later she met her husband at BYU and how she had served a mission in Russia and how they had children and grandchildren and how her husband had died several years ago. She said that BYU had such a beautiful campus now and compared it to the Garden of Eden.

She had reams of ecclectic bits of paper in her car and in the folder she carried. Written on the bits of paper were copious notes on things like random peoples' geneaology, answers to various questions she had which she had looked up at the library, notes to herself of things she wanted to do, quotes from literature, clippings from newspapers, etc. I was amazed with this woman and these papers that told me about little pieces of her life. To be honest she was mildly insane, perhaps out of loneliness, but also beautifully in tact. She even told me at one point that if all her papers were gone, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Mid-conversation and as she was showing me some more of her papers, she asked me if I needed to be getting anywhere and I reluctantly answered that I had some good friends waiting for me, but that I wasn't in a hurry. She kindly bid me farewell and shooed me off telling me it was nice meeting me and that most people were in a real hurry all the time these days. It's true and I felt a little bad for that. I really was fascinated by this charming old lady and could have talked to her for a lot longer.

I got back to the Wilk and realized that Smurf and Wiggle had left so I walked home. I couldn't help but smile and giggle to myself about everything that had just happened in the last 45 minutes. I'm glad Wiggle and Smurf saw some of it in person because otherwise I'm not sure I would have been able to convince myself that such a thing had really happened.

All in all it made life feel a little more tangibly beautiful, tender, and benevolent. Precious.

When surveying flood damage gets out of hand.

I was just awakened by the Pleasant Grove Police Department inquiring as to the whereabouts of my roommate.

Then his Mom called to grill me on everything I know, which is very little.

He has been gone all night.

I am very tired and grouchy.

Cinema et moi.

Several movies I've seen lately:

1. Star Wars Episode III - Awesome. That's all I have to say about this movie. That...and I'm going to be Yoda when I grow up. His humble, all-knowing demeanor that can turn into some very purposeful kick-ass action in a split second...man. Yoda is the character I think of when I'm trying to conjour up some wisdom and patience that is not my own. This movie was definitely the best movie of the latest three, if not all of them. The others were mostly pretty scenery and cool special effects. Episode III had all of that, but also a much more focused plot and loads of revealed mysteries.

2. Kinsey - Very insightful movie about sex, err...a guy who studied sex. I trust that most people who read this blog will be familiar with Kinsey. If you don't know who he is, get a hold of me. We need to talk.
The first part of the movie sort of deals with how sex is this natural urge that needs to be satisfied, and then the second part deals more with the hurt and anguish that comes from infidelity and a lack of self-restraint. This all builds up to an ending where everything is reconciled very nicely. I have to say I think I completely agree with this movie's very fair and balanced take on sexuality. There was a bit of naughtiness in it, but the more risque scenes were purposefully and artfully done, so if you're okay with that, check it out. An excellent movie

3. Memento - A movie about a man with no short term memory who is bent on vengeance. Disturbing, but brilliant! One of those movies that makes it hard to sleep that night, in the same kind of way as Requiem for a Dream if you've ever seen that. Except less intense than Requiem. I think I would like to know the person who made this film. He has to be some kind of twisted, psychotic genius.

4. Hotel Rwanda - The true story of a hotel manager in Rwanda during the genocide there in the early 90's. Thought provoking and moving. This movie strengthened my resolve to join the Peace Corps. If you watch this movie, you will walk away feeling like you should change the world somehow, even if only for a few moments.

I think we all need to watch more movies.

Sometimes.

Sometimes I can't figure out why I can't figure anything out. And then I remember that I'm still the 18 year-old.

I've been thinking about some things lately that have coincidentally been the subject matter of things I have read or stumbled across on a Yahoo group I am part of. (Not quotes from people on the group, that is against the rules, but rather quotes that other people have included in their posts.) And of course they are much better put this way than they could have been had I written them.

“As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.”

H. D. Thoreau.
Walden

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it in tact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken;it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

"Jesus did not condone; he declined to condemn; but he sent the sinner away with a solemn adjuration to a better life."

Talmage, Jesus the Christ