To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.

Two days ago somebody suggested the moderately unreasonable notion that Julia Roberts has reduced herself to feasting on the heads of orphaned children. Now I know what you're thinking. This blog used to be family-friendly, before I mentioned that. Well, it might be a valuable family policy to read my blog together with your parents so you can discuss thematic elements like this as they come up, on a case-by-case basis. I want families to be stronger, and this might just be the way to do it. I have an expanded outlook, is what I'm saying, and let's hope I know what I'm doing.

Anyway. I heard that, thought it sufficiently singular, moved on, and proceeded to have the weirdest dreams I have ever experienced that very night. It even flowed over into last night. I'll leave it up to your imaginations and parental discretion to figure out how far down this rabbit-hole you want to go. As you can imagine, things got weird. Fast.

Anyway, not only did America's Sweetheart have a cameo the last few nights, but so did a couple of my friends who are about to leave on missions, and it bummed me right out to wake up and realize they were still about to leave and not having zany good times with me at Julia Roberts' Orphanage and Coincidentally Cannabalistic Soup Kitchen. Dreams: where dreams and faceless innocents go to die.

Like I said. Downright bizarre.

Fun fact: she kindly took the time to explain to me why she wasn't in Ocean's Thirteen. It was something dull, like not supporting or wanting to glorify grandiose heist schemes any more. Or a scheduling conflict, I forget.

Bump, Scrape, Screech.

Have you ever sneezed so hard that a string instrument on the other side of your room started resonating? Because, let me tell you, it is an experience. I don't know whether to be proud about this or not. I mean, I did it, but anyone could have. Why was I chosen? Too many questions, not enough time. Life is a mystery to me.

Last night as I was riding the elevator up to my floor, I took regretful note of a ticket stub lying on the elevator floor. Somebody had seen White House Down, starring Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, and was not ashamed enough of their film choice to hide, incinerate, or destroy the proof. Don't they know elevators have cameras? Didn't they know that, unlike books, some movies can be wisely judged by their covers? Do I really want to be living among people who fail to exercise the most elementary levels of prejudice at the box office? Too many questions.

So we went swimming last night for a surprise party for Dear Little Sister. Balloons, pizza, pop, fun, and friendship were had by all. The chips didn't quite make the rounds as well as the friendship or the pizza, but a couple people were lucky enough to get some samples.

Then as I was dropping off some folks at their apartment after the party, I had a completely fine drive with responsible and prescient navigating skills that kept both myself and my car unscathed and fit for travel. It was entirely uneventful, as my driving often is, and one wonders why I bother to mention it at all. One might wonder if I'm telling the truth. Well, One might really want to tone it back a bit with the questions, all right? I'm sure One isn't half as perfect as they make themselves out to be, so let's, can we all, I mean, just forget it, all right? Too many questions.

Standing Outside with My Mouth Open Wide.

Pink eye is among the less manly-sounded diseases I've heard about. It's right up there with the butterfly plague or the rainbow flu. Either of which sounds markedly more interesting. My eye's itchiness is none of your business, thank you kindly, but since you asked so politely, yes, it itches something fierce.

I played Mafia last night with Dear Little Sister and the gang. Not a real gang, mind you. A close-knit group of friends forged in years past through common experience to become almost like a family. Like I said, Mafia. Then we played Rook. It was basically the Sunday game night's greatest hits album last night. Just throw in Bang and we'd have it sown up.

So the Gospel. Just want to say, I loved church yesterday. Went to a different ward so we could stay late and say good-bye to the family yesterday morning, but as usual I loved it. Church is always so inspiring.

Well my assignments and such aren't going to finish themselves, you know? Would that they would. Oh what a rain that would be.

Oh, What's in a Blog?

When I was in elementary school, my teacher read us a book where some kid was eating worms every day for some reason. Like you do. One day he forgot, or was tricked into forgetting, so in the middle of the night before the day was technically over he took a megaphone and announced to the neighborhood that he was about to do it so he wouldn't break his streak. Anyway. Writing in my blog every day is slightly more rewarding than eating worms. I imagine if I missed a day I would just let it go.

Yesterday we went to a space camp with my family. We signed up and this place assigned us roles on a spaceship adapted from a surprisingly spaceship-like room. I wasn't fooled, it was just a room, but that didn't make it any less incredible. I actually went to pretend space yesterday afternoon. Better believe it.

I tell you what, Mormon Messages? These YouTube videos we watch in Sunday School sometimes? A genuine blessing heaven-sent for teachers and classes both. Multimedia is the way to go.

I woke up this morning to three of my nephews jumping on me, throwing pillows on me, and generally making merry in the direction of my person. It was working to get me up, until I bought some time by letting them play games on my iPod while I came to and licked my wounds. Your move, little kids. Your move.

So, guys. What's up? Life good? Family treating you well? Glad to hear it. Nothing else to say, as far as I can think of. Or maybe you and I are in a fight. In which case I don't want to tell you anything else right now. I'm currently feasting on Korean candy, and it's incredible. As such, I've got to go.

These Creaky Bones.

This is something like the dozenth year we've had these official family reunions on this side of the family. I just love them. Before that I really didn't know many of my cousins or aunts and uncles, but now I'm good friends with a lot of them. (To coin: the term "iblings" to refer to aunts and uncles. And this blog should be renamed The Mint for all the coinage I'm responsible for. Rimshot.)

Last night we united our board game collections, accrued over years and years of research and extensive field testing, and played a couple until late into the night. I tell you, my arthritis is due to start manifesting soon enough, because I was over-ready to go to bed by eleven. My ten-years-ago self would be ashamed; my ten-years-ago parents would be elated.

Weakness can't halt the forward arrow of tradition, though. We ended a couple of hours after that, when none of us were truly self-aware any more. We have genuinely begun these game sessions in years past at the same time we were cleaning up last night. Our stubbornness kept us all from yielding altogether to fatigue, though, like the Black Night's "flesh wound" from The Holy Grail.

Board games at family reunions: proof that the human achievement is destined to exceed the impossible. Just kidding, functioning cold fusion systems would do that. The parallel I've heard most often about rallying my family members to a single cause is "herding cats." That's unfair to cats, from a family whose motto is "I'm the boss of my own self." As documented on the T-shirts a few years back.

One dear cousin in high school reminded me of the time I had a hip-hop hit in my head a couple of months ago, which upon my stuck-in-the-head performance she said, "Isn't that song from, like, ten years ago?" Mockery ensued. That song is current, hip, happening, fresh, now, I said. For a high schooler I was astonished by her slippery grasp of pop culture. Well that's what Wikipedia is for, team: she looked it up and showed me it was genuinely exactly ten years old. Okay, then. Mockery ensued. I tell you, I need to either get with the times or get out of the temporal kitchen.

Have at You, "The Man."

So I've got this friend. He's long been a fan of all kinds of music I judged harshly as being the front lines on the wrong side of the musical battle of good vs. evil. For regular readers, I considered all of the bands he liked heavy metal. Well apparently, like he's been saying for some years now, I am totally wrong on this count. Last night I willingly searched for specific songs on YouTube that were stuck in my head by three such bands (read: bastions of wickedness). Not only did I seek these songs out intentionally, but I did so mindfully with intent to enjoy them. Now either I have fallen far, or I have been wrong all these years, and those bands make pretty music. I just don't know what to believe. Friends, right?

I was certain, I tell you certain that I saw the president of my university playing foosball in my apartment complex yesterday in the common area. First of all, a "common" area is neither fit nor becoming for one with so exalted a station as he; secondly, foosball, sir? I do declare. Never liked that game much. Granted, when I say I was certain, I tell you certain, I do so without any of the willingness to defend my position that the word implies. As a matter of fact I am certain it wasn't him. But, you know. Blog fodder. You gotta do what you gotta do.

The other day I fought the system and won. I regularly stay at my friend's apartment and park in the two-hour visitor parking spots. I thought I had a solid strategy to avoid the local parking Gestapo's wrath, with regard to getting tickets or fees or boots: obey all signs. Turns out they're not so big into that, as in the last month or so I have gotten no less than three boots. (I'm not saying I didn't have more, but I didn't have less. No, I didn't have more. Three it was. You guys got me.) I mean, I even set an alarm on my phone a little before two hours are up to go move it to a different spot, which they have told me is allowed. Very kind of them.

Well I got a boot. Normally the guy who comes to take it off says that he doesn't have anything to do with anything but taking it off, so I just started complaining a bit and explaining my situation. He took out his camera they use to take photos every two hours, apparently, and I showed him that I was in two different spots. He politely agreed and just went ahead and took that bad boy right off.

That's called fighting the system, folks. Politely accepting your fate, lightly commiserating with fellow bureaucracy cogs about the status quo, and then watching them reveal more authority than you knew they had in order to reward you for being mildly upset. It's the way of the world. He was a nice guy, and if he hadn't ended up being able to fix it, I would have felt bad later about complaining to somebody who couldn't do anything about it. But, I didn't, and I'm kind of glad about this? Listen. Don't moralize this story. It's kind of not so easy to do.

I notice I've made a habit of hitting about five paragraphs and stopping, so this bonus mini-paragraph is just to reset the status quo. It's the equivalent of a page that reads, "This page intentionally left blank." Move along, move along.

A Little Less Celebration, a Little More Action.

I always thought (until how recently I decline to say) that the positions of attorney general and surgeon general were military distinctions, sort of a way to let all the different generals stand out. Turns out that is not the case.

So there was a little festival going on yesterday to celebrate Pioneer Day, which I attended with some folks I know. The problem was, we got there in the afternoon apparently right when it was all closing down. It wasn't all at once, though: pretty much every single activity or exhibit or whatever waited to shut down until we walked by it or, if we were trying to take part, we were next up in line. It was like a malevolent series of Pioneer Day anti-miracles, as they were out to get us instead of helping us celebrate. Pioneer Day 2013 ruined. The magic is gone for me; next year I'm going to need to learn a valuable Pioneer Day lesson to offset this year's mild inconvenience.

I've got a family reunion that's going to start tonight, and I'm really excited about that. Dear Little Sister will be there, so I'll have to pretend to be excited about that. (I kid, I kid! Or do I? You be the judge.) We always stay up late playing board games and do fun things with the niblings. (Fun fact of the day: "niblings" is a real word that encompasses nieces and nephews. You're welcome.) It'll be nice to see everybody.

Okay, okay, I'm not so jaded that I don't believe in Pioneer Day any more. Obviously I'm a huge fan of having work and school off all day. It should be a weeklong celebration, I say.

I'm going to have a fun contest. Whoever memorizes every word published on this blog will get a dollar. Go.

There Is Yet Hope for Humanity.

Happy Pioneer Day, everyone! What is that, you ask? You don't get the day off from your daily labors? I'm sorry to hear that. Next time, try living in a state that commemorates the Mormon pioneers' westward exodus. I don't think I even knew about this holiday before I moved out here. It's definitely bigger than Independence Day. I would like to see Will Smith in a blockbuster about traveling west in a handcart, but racing aliens to get there or something. Wouldn't you? You know you would pay to see that, too. That's the magic of Pioneer Day. I think. Or so I'm told.

Went swimming last night in my apartment's vast first-floor pool complex, with some friends who wanted to see it and go swimming there. So, "swimming" is a strong word, I admit. My feet got wet, anyway. While we were there I was drawn to reviewing the pros and cons of living at my apartment complex. A huge pro is that everyone here is way nicer than anywhere else I've lived. Everywhere else, people walk right by you without even looking at you, no matter how much you go out of your way to make eye contact. It is anathema to those people.

Not so, here: everyone I run into not only says "hi" but tries to start a conversation with you. The first couple times this happened to me, I was genuinely confused. Had this guy just moved in? Why won't he respect the sanctity of my urban solitude? But, being from the good ol' Midwest, that wall quickly came tumbling down. I love it, and I never want to leave, not until the exact moment a better offer presents itself.

Guys, yesterday the unthinkable happened. I poured my cereal from a new box and a toy fell out. It was Trix. It was a promotional toy for Despicable Me 2. But it was magnificent. It happened just the way they show it on TV: serendipitously, falling into my bowl like a magnificent limited-edition marshmallow would be, shining for all the world to see. That's when I knew. That's when I knew the world still had hope and a fighting chance. Happy Pioneer Day!

Breaching the Lower Limits of Boring. Sorry.

I can't say how tired I am right now. Words fail me. For the first time in my life, my trusty sidekick, my faithful standby, my most valuable tool—the ancient craft of written language—is failing me. I am that tired. Actually no I'm probably fine. It woke me up a bit to try to figure out as complicated a way to exaggerate that as possible. Meaning, we're ready to roll.

Medicine is a funny thing. It totally messes with your system one day and grants you salvation the next. I'm on some medicine for which I had the dosage increased last week, and yesterday it started making me sick. I called the doctor and changed my prescription back to where it had been, but the damage was done. No, that's being melodramatic again. Everything worked out fine, and I didn't get that sick, but it was a little annoying. There, I said it. The weakness of my mortal frame bothers me sometimes. We were all thinking it.

"Stream of consciousness," as a friend dubbed this writing style to me yesterday, is one of the best ways to write, I've decided. I mean, that's pretty much how I've written in my journal for the last couple of years, and it's always a pleasure to go back and reread. Although I am typically blown away by how trivial things were back then, and how much weight I would give things that weren't really important or didn't end up being that big of a deal. I mean, I really miss the big picture when I write in my journal. It's normally a detailed dispatch of the day's activities, when the day wasn't really that interesting. I can pretty much summarize my method for crafting entries thus: "not much happening these days; here's an overly detailed description of the aforementioned non-happenings; I should really write more often in my journal."

Does anybody else ever worry about huge things that take up a ton of mental capital for you, but in the end you bring it up with nobody at all? Because, let's face it, nobody really cares. (Thank you, Gollum-brain, for that one.) So instead you just take the amount of worry you have been expending, remove the reasons that justify the worry, fill it back up with trivialities that anybody can relate to but that won't make them wish you weren't talking to them, and find yourself being upset about things you don't actually care about? I do. Maybe it's just me, but it's like I have a misery quota that is, each new day, my top number one urgent priority to fill up, even if I have to fudge the numbers a bit to come up with something to be miserable about. Worry waits for no man. I'm sure this is standard to the human condition, yeah? Nobody? Okay cool then, me neither. Glad we worked that out. Just one of those, uh, jokes, you know. Gotcha.

Okay let's talk about happiness, on the other hand! If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops, that would be a totally sick rain. If a butterfly can reach the top of a double rainbow and the sunlight strikes it just so, we get a unicorn. You can't explain that.

Well, cool. Pretty sure we unraveled some of the more mysterious threads in the tapestry of mortality today. And you got to be a part of it. I'm so jealous. Let's blame it on the cat if we get in trouble for it. All agreed?

This Is All Just a Big Misunderstanding.

Somebody from home recently went to Comic-Con and had been keeping me apprised of its goings-on via Facebook. That is to say, they posted photos to their timeline from time to time—not so much like a direct channel as I'd like, but just as effective as a direct line to the Kremlin. Facebook was my red phone on my desk that kept telling me that somewhere, someone else was having fun and I wasn't there. I always thought Comic-Con—well, I guess I just drank the Kool-Aid about it being dweebish and unbecoming one of a high station in life as myself (read: over 16 years old). Red Kool-Aid, on my desk, for parallelism's sake. But the Kool-Aid was a lie. It looks awesome.

I was also just alerted by my informant in China—that's unnecessary to this story, but you needed to know that I have powerful friends strategically globe-hopping on the internship phase of their professionalization—to an article about a man with my same name. Middle initial and everything. He was just released from a prison sentence that nearly spanned my complete mortal sojourn, exonerated by DNA evidence for a crime he didn't commit, and he's having the order that set him free framed. Nothing particular about that story, just that I can't imagine what the world would be like without DNA analysis. Well, I can, since it hasn't been here forever, but I mean I'm grateful for it. It's just awful to think about that much of someone's life being taken from them. How do they cope, or make the best of it? Do they, even? Bummer might be as much of an understatement as awesome is an over-, but there it is. It is the ultimate bummer to start your morning off with. And he has my name. Could have been me. Thanks a lot, informant. Let's take it down a notch on keeping me so apprised.

So there's a song that I've taken a particular shine to. It's by a band that I've always assumed was heavy metal—to be perfectly unfair, I apparently thought every single band from before the eighties, sans the Beatles, was heavy metal. Elvis probably dabbled. Anyway I've come to begrudgingly accept my naivety and to see that this song, and presumably this band, is extremely pretty. It's my favorite song of the moment. Meaning it will expire as such in about a week, and I have favorites of more permanence at the moment, but this is this song's time to shine, baby.

Well, it features prominently a name of a girl that I am also starting to really, really love. The name, not the girl. Well, I don't know the girl, so let's not judge unfairly: I at least love the name. I shot it right to the top of my list of favorite girl names for when I have children. It also probably has an expiration date attached. I need some favorite names of more permanence here. To quote Jack Donaghy's surprisingly reasonable advice, you've got to stick to Bible names and kings and queens of England.

Problem, though. I don't want my daughter—my little angel—to be named after a heavy metal song, even one falsely accused as such. Well, really a popular pre-70's rock song isn't going to cut it for my princess either. When they go around the class in third grade to say how they got their names, I don't want her to have to cite a rock band of any generation, quite frankly. I don't often mind what third graders think of me, but if they've heard of that band and made the same assumptions as I have, I will officially be the worst father ever in their little eyes. My little girl needs something better to say. I need to make this name normal. Meaning, today I begin my studies of the Bible and British royal history in earnest. I'll even drum up some forged manuscripts and see if I can get society to buy into them if it will keep me—cool? will that word even be around then?—in the eyes of those (surprisingly judgmental, in my imagination) children. Okay that's why we talk about these things. I've got some serious issues I need to deal with, here. Not the least of which is my rogue underpunctuation and overinterjection.

Adventures in Seafaring, Episode Two.

Yes, Zynga and like-missioned companies, I would be delighted to give your inane games access to my personal data. If they're going to get my hopes up with these notifications whenever I sign on, only for it to be an invitation to sign in to a worm-infested virus-ridden clone of a clone of a clone of an old arcade game, they could do me the courtesy of giving them silly names. Bubbledy-Boppity-Boo sounds good. That might actually be one. (And while I'm at it, no, my computer, I will never let you update Java again. Not until you deserve it. Pull yourself together, Oracle. Lives are on the line.) I tell you, folks. Facebook used to stand for something.

So, uh. Hi. I went tubing down the river yesterday, and I am just magnificently sunburned. It is just Farmer's Tan, USA over here. Unknown Zip code. It was all kinds of fun (for instance: one fun, two fun, red fun, blue fun—I could go on), considering I didn't fall in or scrape my flippity-floppity-foot-less feet across the rocks on the bottom, or the rogue tree branches to the sides. It was a jolly good time.

Here's my train of thought in advance, since I know you'll be asking: "Jolly good, what what. Pip pip, cheerio." I am currently feasting on Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. That's the number one perk of being a grown-up: getting your preferred mix of cereal. Parents can't control you forever, you know. Although, I still have never even tried Count Chocula, or Cookie Crisp, or basically any of the higher quality options out there (read: including chocolate). Maybe parents can control you forever? The research is inconclusive at this stage.

Point of order: when I said "being a grown-up," what I meant was "being old enough to be regularly mistaken for a grown-up." A subtle but crucial difference. I dare say the difference is even vital. Lives are on the line, here.

One downside to the tubing experience. (Obviously, having my brains so sunburned they're basically scrambled eggs trying to fall out my ears is not a downside. It's a neato parlor trick.) The downside is that I would emerge from my peaceful reverie every so often to catch a mosquito in the act, to catch them red-proboscissed. As I am merciful toward other such pathetic creatures, I was humane. But it's hard to know you are that much closer to being a vampire, or a superhero with powers from a radioactive mosquito. Being. Mosquito-Man. would. be. the. worst. thing. There, now that I used that punctuation style unironically, my transformation to a twentysomething female blogger is complete. Oh. my. goodness. so. cute.

Boating Is as Boating Does, I Always Say.

I have this theory I've been working on, that goes a little something like this: the more you blog, the more interesting things start happening to you. Or at least, enjoyable things. I am certain it has nothing to do with counting blessings that were already there that I didn't notice. 100% sure on that one. It would ruin my theory.

Last night I went to this activity for a stake not my own that was—I kid you not—the best stake activity I have ever been to. (Let's put that in perspective: I'm sure I've been to at least a couple, I think.) Why so magnificent, you ask? They had boats. The kind that float on water. And don't sink with you in them.

Here's how it happened: I showed up, bright-eyed, ignorant, and naive, to just look around and see what this "having fun" nonsense was all about. I hear tell of boats. It is an activity at the lake, after all. Makes perfect sense. After soaking in the resplendent karaokial magnificence, I run into a friend of a friend of a friend who, having passed my rigorous friendship-of-a-friendship written examination, I have since co-opted to be friend of my own. They've already been on the waterborne vessels of infinite joy a couple times, and I insist we go again. We do. It's fun. It's the best activity I have ever been to. Wasn't even for my own stake. Incredible. Boating in all its manifestations is the best thing there is. The end.

Okay, a little side note here about "karaokial." That should definitely be a word. I don't want to hear it, auto-correct. Like "parochial," which I almost certainly can define but just don't want to, okay? Or... any number of other doubtlessly fine examples. Fine, I coined it. That's the power of blogging, my friends. Ancient English Etymological Dictionary of the Year 7056: entry "karaokial." First recorded use on a particularly handsome gentleman's blog near the beginning of recorded history. Definition unknown; related to the lost practice of "karaoke," likely an order of martial arts focusing in hand-to-hand combat. Special notes: one of the best words ever.

Second footnote. My blog's written style guide indicates that third parties will be referred to using the gender-neutral pronoun "they." I just decided this because I was noticing I did it but didn't want to fix it. Call me rebellious if you must, but I prefer the term "visionary." Either way, a style guide is a style guide, as I always say. I can't just disregard it, now can I?

Wut Up Chat. I Said Wut Up.

I meant to celebrate my blog's one-week-of-posts anniversary yesterday by actually telling somebody about my blog? But I forgot.

Speaking of... particular dates that are significant because of the time that's passed since something began? My dear little sis (henceforth and hereafter "DLS" on this blog; so shall it be, forever and ever) gets home from her mission (for the LDS Church) today.

There are so many different things I could say, but instead I'll highlight them in that one sentence with varying emphasis. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today.

Maybe you're confused. Perhaps you misunderstand. I grant that I may have been unclear. Let me try again: she gets home from her mission today. Got that? We're good? All clear?

Very excited. Won't see her for a little while yet since she's actually moving farther away from me geographically, but thanks to our horses' hooves being counted like flint and our wheels like the whirlwind I'll be seeing her on Skype soon enough. Which is good, in case I have to turn her off. Which I'm kidding about. Or am I? You be the judge.

Weird. Missions are long, weird, time-manipulating creatures. Can't believe it's been a year and a half.

Not Quite a Thief in the Night.

About two weeks ago I was up early at 4 a.m. reading in the front room when one of my roommates, apparently turning in way late after a night of excessively leisurely studying, started rattling the door trying to get it open. Since it was locked, I waited a few seconds to see if he was going to just get out his key to get in.

When I didn't hear any other fiddling with the knob, I got up to let him in. But he wasn't there. Nobody up or down the hallway, either. Okay, that's odd, but not a big deal. Maybe somebody else came back home really late and... forgot which room was theirs? Well, I didn't really think about it.

So yesterday in the elevator, I'm talking to somebody else from the fifth floor, one of my neighbors. He's making small talk and asks if I heard about the robbery on the fifth floor? It was about two weeks ago. Some punk from the first floor decided to come up to our floor and go on a scavenger hunt to find other people's expensive things. My friend in the elevator's room got stolen from, for one, and the other one this guy got into was next door to me.

Two unrelated stories, right? Well that's what I thought at first, too. But after the most fleeting review of the available facts I've determined that it's a good thing my roommates and I lock our door every time we leave. I assume they caught the guy, since my elevator buddy said he was from the first floor, but I don't know.

Also, he apparently stole this guy's copies of both Settlers of Catan and Dominion, but left his roommate's electronics collection alone. Who does that?

Anyway. That ought to slake my readership's thirst for crime, intrigue, and suspense for another few days or so, eh?

Confessions of a Borderline Sub-Genius.

So fun fact of the day. Yesterday evening I took my custom for the evening meal to the ever-illustrious Del Taco. I ate my taco on the way to my friend's house a few minutes away, and by the time I got there, was left with less taco than I began with, but more trash. Problem, right? Wrong. There's a Dumpster on the way. I am efficiency and brilliance incarnate. Thus, on the way inside, I tossed my food—that is to say, my food's wrapper and bag—into the Dumpster outside. Makes sense, right? Trash goes in the trash. Plain and simple. I may not know much in this confusing world, but I do know that.

Not so fast. Just because I know where trash goes does not mean that I am good at separating my iPod from the trash before disposal. I distinctly remember tossing the bag in, presumably after I'd gotten my iPod out of my pocket and was holding it, and thinking it felt slightly heavier than I should have expected. Inexplicably, I had gotten it out in the same hand as I was holding my garbage, a foot away from the Dumpster.

I've never (publicly) claimed my genius to be infallible, though I've never denied it either. I'm not going to waste this moment officially taking the common stance on my lack of common sense, but I'm pretty sure you can piece it together on your own and figure out how smart I feel at the moment.

Remember when I felt like the bag was heavier than I expected? Well, I shrugged that right off until about two hours later when I could not find my iPod for the life of me. I called three times asking for help looking in the places it might have been. Thank goodness I ran through my usual suspects: under a couch cushion, behind the couch, or in the garbage.

Once I was walking through the downtown area and a guy in a trenchcoat tried to sell me stupid insurance. I took everything he had. I'm at such high risk, I just can't afford to take any chances.

Free Frisbee or Your Money Back.

Great. I have grass stains on the knees of my khaki shorts. There it is, folks. I'm going to be the laughingstock of the indoor working class, for today at least. So long, friends in high places. I'm off to join a world without privilege—and learn a few things about friendship along the way!

I tossed a Frisbee last night at the park with some friends, after being summoned by one so unfortunate among us to have never learned to throw one. At least, not how to do it in polite company, which was an urgent consideration since polite company had expressly invited our fallen comrade to do so. So we banded together to end the multi-decade streak of the party in question in what I can only describe as an act of pure charity.

Since you're wondering, yes, it was almost exactly like a Disney Channel teen sitcom where everybody unites to teach somebody how to dance or use cutlery and fine etiquette or conduct themselves above their social station at their crush's upcoming party. If the memory of my nerves serves, these particular episodes were almost unilaterally exercises in humiliating the title characters and making live studio audiences squirm. I loved those shows. But I digress.

Actually I suppose I only said that out of force of habit, considering I have digressed from nothing, and so can regress nowhere. So I guess that's the end of our worldly considerations of the day, Bing. Remember to always be yourself at parties. We didn't technically learn this lesson today, but we learned about learning it, which will have to be close enough. Tune in to a future episode to learn about how we set out to learn about learning about it—but end up with more than we bargained for!

My friend picked it up perfectly, in fact. But since we've all seen this episode before, we know what's going to happen, right? The script says to forget everything we taught, rediscover the virtue of just being yourself, and teach everybody present a valuable lesson in friendship (there, just like I promised, I mentioned friendship again!). And so, we waste all of the time we invested last night when we could have been doing nothing, make my grassy badges of courage worthless, and, quoth Abed of Community fame, "create the illusion of story."

It's Time for Mission Stories.

All right, folks. You asked for it, you got it. Installment number four of what may yet come to be known as the most significant series of emetic posts and mental waste yet to grace your face. That might not be true, but I offer a challenge up to anyone on the Internet to supply more meaningful regular posts than are to be found here. Go ahead. I defy you.

Back when I was on my mission in Albania (for the LDS Church), I spent a lot of time every day just walking from place to place, trying to talk to people. Sometimes it was harder for me to open my mouth than others; those are the times when I would get lost in a cyclone of thought, bouncing from one idea to another as I tried to calm down my sense of the world, think about what I should be teaching and focusing on, and figuring out where we ought to go to look for more people.

Whenever I did this, I found myself doing the same thing: I would find myself imagining myself on my first Sunday home from my mission, giving a talk in church as a report of the things I learned on my mission, and how I learned them. My journal is full of these moments, I think. I would always be saying in my mind, "If I learned one thing on my mission, it would be the following." I probably summarized the whole of my mortal experience into a couple concise phrases a dozen times a day. It wasn't that I purposely set out to prepare for my homecoming talk like that, just that I kept finding myself standing at the pulpit in my imagination trying to summarize the most fundamental principles of existence. I guess I wanted to make my mission worthwhile for the people at home when I got back as well as to make it worthwhile to myself and the individuals I was teaching at the time.

I don't know why my mind always went there, but I'm glad it did. There was probably too much going on for me to list it all off, so I always thought, "If I can just get the right way to phrase the right thing, then I can be let off the hook and just always refer to that when I need to." Turns out, though, there seems to be a reason the Church is built on the principle of continuing revelation. Building your body of knowledge "line upon line, precept on precept" like this would refresh my understanding and make old principles new to me. In particular, I always found myself coming up with a phrase that closely mirrored a song we sang in primary or a scripture we had focused on studying in seminary, or that I had read that morning in my personal study.

A lot of people talk about "deep" doctrine as something to be avoided, but I always felt like the "deepest" doctrines I was privy to from the Holy Ghost were those that were the simplest and the easiest to miss or forget in a time of struggle. "Love one another," or "For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son." Stuff that you feel like, since it's not a complicated principle, you need to advance forward or branch out from. Actually, I found it the other way around: they're deep in moment and meaning, not in phrasing or relative obscurity.

Maybe "the course of the Lord is one eternal round" because it keeps bringing you back to the same doctrines over and over again, but not in a stale or repetitive way—in a way that makes you feel like you've never heard the right things properly before, even the last time that you read or heard the exact same thing. Somehow, when you're stepping forward and leaving your home, you end up appreciating what you left that much more when the road leads you right back where you came from. Usually when you thought you were farthest from where you started and weren't even paying attention.

Mario Kart as One's Everything.

Right, so here we go, writing for three days in a row, Barney got shot by a G.I. Joe. Barney showed up to the intensive care unit at the closest hospital and when his friends heard what had happened, they showered him in flowers and "get well soon" cards and were in general very lovely to him. Barney was glad to count for himself so many friends; he urged them all to give his attacker another shot (!), but nobody ever really looked at G.I. Joe the same after that.

So let me tell you all a little of what I know about Mario Kart. No, no, it's no trouble at all. In fact, I insist. There are five versions: SNES Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart: Super Circuit for Gameboy Advance. Rumor speaks of a sixth, for Nintendo DS, which I exclude from my reckoning due to an extreme prejudice against the Nintendo DS since they weren't around when I was growing up. (Not so much like a wayward parent as how I pretend Liam Neeson wasn't in Star Wars and Cillian Murphy wasn't in Justin Timberlake's In Time. Gentlemen: I know those roles were supposed to be jokes, but they weren't funny. You scared me.) But back to the DS: two whole screens? Back when I was a kid they made a Gameboy designed especially to fit in our pockets and we were glad.

But that's not the end of our little reverie today; kart-racing will take us farther than I expect you're expecting. With some video games, you want to lose yourself in the story. With others, you want to simulate assorted crimes and sundry misdeeds to no ill effect. Yet other games mess up your neurochemistry and throw blocks and arrows and jewels at you every time you close your eyes for years thence. But Mario Kart? That's a different beast altogether. It's not about racing computers to see if you get a high score. It's not about settling scores with friends, or to see who's the best. Indeed, it is as meaningful as truth itself, yet purposeless as the void. It's about zen, my friends.

Close your eyes. Open your heart. Imagine you're flying down Rainbow Road—any incarnation will do, though I like to suggest 64's interpretation. You suddenly have gustatory-visual synesthesia and you've been raised on a diet of every kind of sherbet. In time, you are yin's yang, black's white, and color's monochrome. It is war's peace, pride's prejudice, and truth's reconciliation. Together, you become stop's go, yes's no, in's out, and up's down. The race is for peace, and goodwill toward men is the finish line. Mario Kart is your existence. Mario Kart is zen. Mario Kart is, in sum, your jam.

So yeah, it's pretty fun, I guess. Super Smash Bros. is pretty good, too. And then there's always Tetris if you need it. Or real life, if you must. But try not to fall so far.

It's Getting Clearer.

Now it's coming back to me why neither I nor anyone else I know blogs... because there's really not much to say. Oh yeah? Well, challenge accepted, my friend. I can talk and talk and talk. I have a higher word-count-to-message-content ratio than you ever imagined possible. Maybe I ought to shoot for placement in the Guinness Book of World Records. Or, as I like to call it, my bucket list. First up, sell more platinum records than any other solo pop artist, including (but not limited to) Michael Jackson. I'll need to do something cool like that first to work up enough motivation to nail my less appealing goals, like growing the longest fingernails. (No pun intended.)

(Except, obviously that's not true because I'm employing the written word here, and even acknowledgement of a pun indicates implicit pun intention, since I had to notice it to write it and if I wrote it and noticed it I could have deleted it, and if I chose not to delete it? Bam, pun intended. I feel like no one should ever be able to say that phrase ever in their life unless it's about someone else's words. Come on, humanity, let's get it together.)

Words, words, words. Last night I took a break from my gruelingly boring-to-talk-about-unless-you-really-want-to-hear-well-maybe-some-other-time projects to watch Sherlock Holmes, the one with what's-his-name. Robert Downey, Jr. The folks—now, here, and hereafter referring to my friends and acquaintances and enemies with latent hostility, and not my parents—the folks and I watched the second Sherlock Holmes last weekend, I think, which was kickin'. Naturally. Good times were had by all.

It may be a little OCD of me, but it bothers me intensely that there's no third installment coming out. Bothers with the fire of a thousand fireflies. In other words, flickering on and off here and there and perhaps with not such intense heat as I was implying.

Perfect, thanks! Enjoy your day, everyone, anyone, and no one! I think that covers all my politeness bases. Complaints may be filed by whispering. The NSA will give me a transcribed copy later today.

Greetings, Earthling.

Okay, for better or for worse I've decided to start blogging again. Even though nobody I know does much anymore, I like plopping my brain out there into the big scary world of the Internet for anyone to read. Except that nobody will read it. But that's neither here nor there. If you are a human and not just Google's indexing bot, I extend you my warmest welcome. To Google's bot and all other anthropomorphized indexing scripts out there (I'm looking at you, Bing), may you also enjoy your stay, though I'm afraid we don't have any nuts or bolts for you to eat, or whatever robots eat. Or whatever or whatever. Whatever.

So I'm just working on my client's website... thing's a bear. Much more extensive coding than I've done before, just because of an extremely specific code set that I couldn't find anything open source for. The design was done weeks ago, though the functionality has taken much longer, and it's kind of irritating me to have a job unfinished. I'm just trying to do my best, though, plugging along. Hope he likes it.

And here's a list of some irresponsible expensive impulse purchases I've made recently: an unnamed piece of electronic equipment, a banjo, and several comic book subscriptions. I mean, who does that? Seriously. Out of control. I mean, I love them, but I've never bought them. Duh.

And right now I'm working on my normal schedule where I'm most happy and well-rested and productive. But it is so weird and late night-owl-ish. Not super conducive to a normal student or professional life. But it gets stuff done and I love it. I just wish it didn't seem so weird when people ask about it.

And I'm listening to Counting Crows and loving it. Been a while since my iPod's connected to my iTunes since something or other broke, so I haven't listened to them much. They're my favorite band, far and away. A Murder of One, Mrs. Potter's Lullaby, Recovering the Satellites (language warning on that one, Bingbot, try looking for the non-profane edited version), all unbelievable songs to me. Love 'em to pieces.