Nothing to write about

I’m not sure what it is that inspires me to write—is it a life altering experience or maybe just an idea that I can milk for a lot of good movie quotes. But whatever it is, I haven’t been feeling it. So now, as I look at a screen without words, an empty document for me to fill with experience, wisdom, and humor—I’ve got nothing, so that’s what I’m going to tell you about.

“When you look too long into the abyss, the abyss looks back through you.”

An awkwardness arises in a situation where words are expected yet there are none to share. I think you can learn a lot about a person by what they say/don’t say in these types of moments: moments when they have nothing to say. There are those who don’t speak and those who do.

Among those who don’t speak there are those who choose not to say anything and those who are so oblivious to the awkwardness that they couldn’t find anything to say even if they tried to.

Those who choose not to think of something to say anything do so either out of pride or out of fear. The proud silent type enjoy watching people suffer. Often it is this person who initiated the silence, inflicting the awkwardness on the group. A bank robber or a bully might enjoy not saying anything when he’s got his gun or his knuckles pointed at his victim.

On the flip side of such an assault is someone who is too frightened to try to come up with anything to say. These shy types may have been conditioned to be so by constantly getting shot down when they have tried to speak up.

“Sir, if I may venture an opinion…”
“I’m not interested in your opinion, 3PO.”

Some people just don’t think. I can’t really relate to these people because my thoughts go a million miles a minute and bounce from topic to topic like a deck of trivial pursuit cards. But these people have nothing going on in their heads and therefore have no well of ideas from which to draw.

“All right, Homer, now your name is Mr. Thompson, so when I say hello Mr. Thompson, you say hi.”
“Check!”
“Hello, Mr. Thompson.”

“…”

“Now, remember, your name is Mr. Thompson.”
“Gotcha!”

“Hello, Mr. Thompson.”
“… … …”

“ARGH... Now when I step on your foot and say your name, you smile and nod.”

“I got it.”

[stepping on Homer's foot] “Hello, Mr. Thompson.”

“… [whispering to the Witness Protection Agency man next to him] I think he talking to you.”

My late grandfather could possibly fit into this category, only he wasn’t so much mentally numb as he was socially. He was content with simply enjoying the moment and the rest, that he never paid attention to the social circumstances. If he had nothing to say, he never realized it. I think he did have ideas going on in his head—he was a very intelligent, well educated man—only, his thoughts were so entertaining to him that unless you called his attention to something else, he could sit in silence content for hours.

And now for the category of those people who speak when they have nothing to say. There are two sub-categories in this group as well—those with interesting things to say, and those without. Let’s begin with the latter.

“Thumper!”

“Yes, Mama?”

“What did your father tell you?”

“If you can’t say somethun’ nice… don’t say nothun’ at all.”

I find that these people seem to be most plentiful in Sunday school, but they can be found anywhere you have awkward silence and people polite enough to try to break it.

Whenever someone has nothing to say and then attempts to conjure up a bit of conversation, they draw from things stored in their memory banks. Those with nothing interesting to say suffer from either a small reserve from which to draw ideas, or the inability to group their thoughts into any useful bit of information.

“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

What bothers me most about these comments, is that they’re seldom the speakers original ideas. They are usually an unreferenced quote (plagiarism) or a regurgitated idea, the kind you’ve heard them say a hundred times before, as if they had a default phrase they defer to in times of need, but that really has no authenticity or personality to them.

Then there are the few, the blessed, the inspiring: those who have nothing to say, but can improvisationally weave a tapestry of ideas that touch the rest of us or revive intrigue into a once dying conversation. This is the type people who everyone loves, everyone wants to hang out with, and everyone wishes that everyone else saw them as.

Most people wander in and out of each of the afore mentioned groups, some never leave their own category, and others aspire to groups they are incapable of joining. I don’t claim to be a permanent member of this group, but there are moments when my membership card in this elite club is still valid.

In my last ward my calling was Home Teaching supervisor. Pretty much what that means is that its my job to get the men in the ward to go out and visit the members of the church on a monthly bases. I started making weekly announcements as an entertaining reminder to get that month’s visits taken care of, and eventually it got to the point where it became a class tradition that the lesson didn’t start until Heath gave his words of encouragement.

Most Sundays I’d have thought beforehand about what I could say that would be goofy enough to draw and keep people’s attention, yet related enough to the assignments that I could somehow draw it back to the responsibilities the message was meant to remind us of. But there were some Sundays when it didn’t occur to me to think of something until the moment the class president gave me the floor.

Now I had some successful impromptu announcements and some not so successful. The only formula that I found consistent in the good ones was authenticity. When I used my own ideas, and said them in my own way the thoughts got the attention, and I like to assume, rang true to those listening.

I guess if there’s any point to this entry which started out without any direction, it’s a challenge for everyone to be themselves. If you just do things you like to do and say jokes you think are funny, and share ideas you come up with yourself, while having a bit of hope for the well being of others, then you’ll live feeling good about the example and the advice you give to others. You’ll feel confident in your ideas because they are your own and others will perceive that and it will cause them to listen and to admire you.

If what I said doesn’t cause you to admire me, please, keep it to yourself because I’m enjoy thinking highly of myself :) .

The cost of an augmentation

I know a friend of a friend whose in laws, one weekend, bought him a new jet ski and his wife (their daughter) a new pair of silicone c cups. How much more fun must his life be now! He got three new toys and didn’t have to pay for any of them. Its interesting how a little money spent can make life a lot more enjoyable.

“She's got an awfully large chest to be going to church.”

“Well, all chests are equal in the eyes of God.”

Last weekend I bought an Xbox. For those unfamiliar with today’s video gaming systems: remember the Nintendo-type home video games of yesteryear… an its like that, only Xbox is to the Atari VCS (remember Pong?) as the Mercedes SLR McLaren is to the Ford Model T—sure the idea of a horseless carriage was beyond awesome in its day, but it had always been the good lord’s intention for automobiles to be so much more.

The Xbox has really augmented the enjoyment I get from life. I don’t really know anybody where I live, and for me, the getting to know new people is not a quick process unless you are thrown in the mix together—work, roommates, etc. I am making efforts to make new friends, but I’m not so eager that I’m willing to do things that don’t sound fun just to make friends. So there is plenty of down time between fun friends-making activities.

The Xbox is my companion during these times. Previously I’ve watched movies, tried reading books or some sort of creative project, but TV is often so passive that I fall asleep and books are so active that I tire of reading. But video games both relax and engage. I sit in the same positions (I’ve got about four of them around my living room) to play games as I do watching movies, in other words, it’s just as comfortable. My hands and my brain solve problems, develop plans of attack, and anticipate challenges, so you can see that it’s as mentally and as manually engaging as a reading a book or a fiddling with a project.

“When I grow up and get married, I’m living alone. Do you hear me? I’M LIVING ALONE!”

Living alone can be a lonesome road at times. Don’t get me wrong, I love having time and space to myself, but sometimes it hurts when you want to share with someone and no one’s around. That’s where the Xbox comes in…

“Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall all you gotta do is call and I’ll be there; you’ve got a friend. Ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend?”

I don’t think that it’s a mere coincidence that they call this black and green box a “Game Console.” Console the noun (kŏn'sōl') is described as “a central control panel for a mechanical, electrical, or electronic system”(dictionary.com). And console the verb (kən-sōl') is the action word meaning “to cheer in distress or depression; to alleviate the grief and raise the spirits of; to relieve; to comfort; to soothe” (dictionary.com). How ironic, that this electronic control panel is so adept at raising spirits and alleviating grief. Those days when I’ve got nothing going on and I wish I had, I’m okay, because I’ve got my console to console me.

“I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

My friends have been involved with the Xbox for years (which is obvious by how brutally they wallop me in HALO), but I’ve put off getting too deeply involved in such an addictive, time wasting, socially debilitating infernal machine. Even at the outset of this purchase, I’ve felt a little apprehensive. Sure video games are fun, but too much fun is not a good thing—remember poor Lampwick from Disney’s Pinocchio? On Pleasure Island, he was so consumed by having fun that he turned into a jackass, and poor Pinoc almost lost it too. I’ve worried that diving into the sea of virtual oceans and electronic landscapes would numb my social awareness, I don’t want to be a jackass—and a lot of the jackasses that I know, have become such due to way too many video games.

It wasn’t until this summer, when many of my weekends were spent with my good friend D$ Glazier that I realized that the Xbox doesn’t hamper socializing, it augments it. Dustin (D$) is a rare type of friend with whom I can enjoy doing not only cool activities, but also simply doing nothing but talking—bouncing ideas off each other, relating to each other’s dilemmas, and laughing at the similarities between us—but even with a bosom buddy like that, there are times when you still want to hang out, yet neither of you have the emotional stamina or the marathonic attention span to start another deep conversation.

Enter Xbox. This black and green machine brings another element to the friendship (common goals, teamwork, unbelievable kick returns for touchdowns to laugh over, and disappointing defeats over which to mourn). The Xbox is a great way to add a change of pace and a new dimension to hanging out: one minute we’re hanging out on the curb outside 7-11 conversing over our anthropological theories on the mating customs of contemporary Mormon sub-cultures, the next minute we’re in Seoul, Korea reversing the soccer ball back to our midfielder in a Tunisia-Costa Rica World Cup grudge match.

“Now you understand the magic of the rock. You bring back.”
“Yes, I understand its power now.”

My Xboxian conclusion is this: the Xbox is a companion in times of forlorn and an augmenter of one’s social defaults—meaning that if a guy is a jackass at heart, the Xbox will really bring it out of him, but if a guy is an excitable social creature who enjoys the camaraderie of competition, its an enjoyable alternative group activity. Does it cost a lot? Sure, but again: its interesting how a little money spent can make life a lot more enjoyable.

“Anybody wanna buy a used bolo?”

Star Wars: Episode I DVD, Jeep Cherokee, living room sofa, digital camera, BBQ hibachi—these are some of my favorite possessions, and each one of them I bought used either over the internet, or at a second hand storefront.

Used car dealerships and thrift clothing stores have been around for as long as I’ve been alive, but with the relatively recent rise of the internet and sites like ebay.com, secondspin.com, and amazon.com, my limited budget can bring me unlimited pleasures. Toys, gadets, and collections that were once available only to those with enough money to pay top dollar for them are now available to guys like me, whose income bracket ranks them just above the poverty line.

“And we can charge anything we want: two thousand a day, ten thousand a day, and people will pay it. And then there’s the merchandising, and I can personally…”
“Donald. Donald, this park was not built to cater only for the super rich. Everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals.”
“Sure… They will… What, we’ll have a coupon day or something.”

What’s the big deal about all this stuff—you must be very materialistic—right? Wrong. I don’t love having these things just because I always want more—I love having them because they enhance my lifestyle.

“200 points, alright. Good for you.”

I bought a digital camera on ebay for $200 (I’ve seen regular retail price as high as $329). I took that cybershot P-72 with me on my trip home—half of our funnest moments were captured on camera, and the other half were spent laughing as we reviewed the stills and movies I shot with the camera. And now that I’m back from my trip, I’ve got about 400 mega bytes worth of captured memories to remind me of the fun, the food, the family, the friends, and the foliage of home.

“Stop that laughing. You know what happens when you can't stop laughing. One of these days, you're gonna die laughing.”

Another example of the expediency of e-shoping can be found in my most recent on-line purchase: Those who know me well know that my favorite comedy team is Mickey, Donald and Goofy. Cartoon classics like Lonesome Ghosts, Mickey and the Beanstalk, and Prince and the Pauper strike my funnybone in ways that no other movies can. Those three make for a gifted comedic trio, and over the years they’ve turned out to be some of my very best friends. Well, on Tuesday a new Disney DVD was released: Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in The Three Musketeers. Suggested retail price is $29.99, but I bought it used off of amazon.com for 8.99—that’s only half again as much as it’d cost to rent the darn thing, and this way I can watch and laugh again and again and again.

The part inside of me that’s still a kid wants movies, the part inside of me that’s a secret agent wants gadgets, and the part inside of me that’s still my mother’s son can’t help but be frugal—I’m glad there are things like used goods for sale that make it possible to satisfy all three.

Matters of the heart

For most people, matters of the heart are the kind of things that a person must do because their heart demands it of them: a mother who sacrifices to benefit her child, an athlete who presses forward even when his body tells him to stop, a wife who stands in the rain waiting for a husband to be there when he said he would. But for me matters of the heart seem to outlaw actions rather than to obligate them.

“This is a game of the heart. Focus and finish!”

Case in point: I met a girl at church a few weeks ago—she is epically hot and inexplicably interested in me, but the issues are these: a.) she lives 2,000 miles away, 2.) she has a 6 year old daughter, and d.) she is eight years older than me.

The conflict: a.) she’s wicket hot, 2.) she’s way in to me, and d.) she’s in town this week. Any healthy American guy my age would add up those three factors and find the sum total to be an invitation to meet up with her for a quick fling, and they'd jump on the opportunity in a New York minute. I, on the other hand, am barred by my heart, or conscience or what ever you want to call it, from rendezvousing for such a “bootie call” because of the cumulative weight of the three issues listed in the previous paragraph.

If I were to meet with her I would feel ethically obligated to a.) not kiss her—which would be hard (she’s mythologically gorgeous, remember?), 2.) kiss her then validate that kissing with subsequent weeks of emotional commitment, or d.) explain to her before kissing begins that I have no intentions to carry the relationship to any type of fruition then, trusting that she fully understands my position, proceed to kiss her knowing all the while that I’d never see her again. Those are the only options I could ethically execute--and they all suck, so I figure I’d better just not see her at all.

“Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel, don’t think. Trust your instincts.”

I don’t know that I always make the best decisions—the current one is certainly not the most enjoyable I could make—sometimes I worry that a wrong decision made here could alter my opportunities down the road there. But if there's one thing I invest a lot of faith in, it's that if I always follow that voice inside me, the voice that speaks without words, I will always make the right decision. It’s that voice inside that encourages me to take a leap of faith or inspires me to take the highroad when all I want in the world is for my road to take me to easy street.

“In time, you will learn to trust your feelings. Then, you will be invincible.”

It’s the people who prioritize ease over insight who someday find themselved disappointed, and it’s the people who remain true to that inner voice who provide a future of hope for themselves and an example of heroism to those who follow them.

“...Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they’ll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most.”

I’m not a real heavy video gamer, but one thing I’ve always noticed is that when you come to a fork in the road, and one direction is open while the other is blocked by a bad guy, usually the unobstructed path will only take you in circles, but if you defeat the villain there will be a power up, or a warp tunnel, or some kind of added bonus behind him, just out of sight from where you could see from where you were standing before you decided to face him.

“If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”

Life’s the same way, the easy path is seldom the most rewarding and it often dictates or limits your options in the future. You’ve got to know what it is you want and you’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices in order to get there.

“You give up a few things chasing a dream.”

What dream am I chasing: a wife to respect and love (in that order) and kids to provide for and teach. And when I get to a point where I can feel that what I have is not what I want—the point where I can decide to settle for what I’ve got or give it up, even when what I’m giving it up for is an intangible hope--that’s when I trust that part of my heart that says, “do the hard thing, despite the pain, it will bring you what you seek.”

I’ve got a few scars from chasing my dream. Some are still sore to the touch, but I know that they won’t be in vain. Some day soon, I’ll be reading this again with someone close to me, and they’ll know that those scars were for them. I know it because I’ve seen the marks left by the wounds of others whose dream I am.

Home, bittersweet home

I just spent an extended weekend at home with my family in the evergreen state. It was a short trip (just Thursday through Monday) and it was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had—only now that I’m back, I wish that I weren’t. Being at home really threw into sharp relief the differences between Seattle and Salt Lake.

I don’t really like Utah. I’ve been here four-plus years and its still not growing on me. I’m not really sure why I don’t like it—I mean, I know what I don’t like about it I could easily list some things (and I plan to), but I wonder sometimes whether there an underlying reason for me not to allow myself to embrace it? Am I somehow threatened by it and therefore critical of it? If so, it’s unconsciously because I don’t feel threatened by it. Do I depend on my-not being-from-Utah to define my identity? I suppose I do to some extent, but I’m not so wanting for an identity that I use my hometown as a social crutch.

Whatever the motive may be, I often find myself comparing here to home, and here always comes up loser. My trip home reminded me of some of the things I’ve noticed in my comparisons.

Utah is a desert. The air is dry and thin; in the winter it bites and in the summer it burns. The water is hard (excess minerals) and it scratches your throat when you drink it. The scenery is brown and desolate; every tree here was planted by hand and none of the trees provide either shade or privacy. And the cultural diversity is minimal.

“I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.”

In Seattle, we have mildly humid air chalk full of oxygen (due to the near-sea-level elevation). Our tap water is soft and tastes as pure as bottled water (and its just as good straight from the garden hose—or so I recall from the last time I did that ten years ago). The landscape is green and hilly with lakes every 20 miles, and the culture is diverse enough that, when meeting strangers, you always hear a brand-new story (whereas in Utah its more like reading a book for the second time).

“Why am I still in Utah,” you ask? The only reason is because this is where I was first offered a job out of college, and until I’ve got enough experience under my belt to dictate where I work (and therefore where I live), I see staying here as a wise career move.

I’ll admit my dislike for Utah is merely that: a dislike—I don’t hate it here. There are days when a sunset under scattered clouds paints the sky red and I catch myself staring, and when the fall air turns cold and the mountain leaves change, followed by the valleys’, I always take a moment to appretiate the leaves. Plus, some of my best friends I’ve met here in Utah and life would be a lot less entertaining without them.

I think that my trip home just makes me nostalgic for that place, and being around family and friends makes me feel like there is still my home, and here is just a sojourn.

“...unless you can alter time... or teleport me off this rock!"

Time is a funny thing. When you want it to go fast it goes slow, and when you want it to be spent there seems an abundance of it.

I’m heading home tomorrow night for a short, four-day visit with family and friends in my hometown of Kent, Washington. I try to make it back twice a year and it’s been over eight months since my last visit.

"Sorry it’s been so long between visits, I just...”
“It’s been ten years between visits, but—oh, come and give us a squedge.”

All I’ve been able to think about all week long has been how much time I’ve got left before I’m home. I can remember leaving work Monday evening thinking, “one day down, three to go.” Then Tuesday night I thought, “wow, exactly 48 hours from now I’ll be standing on the same hardwood floor I grew up standing on, and I’ll be hugging the same mom I grew up hugging.

My greatest desire in the world right now is for time to flash before me and take me swiftly from this moment directly to the moment I turn the corner to see my dad waiting for me at the Sea-Tac International Airport baggage claim (I expect he’ll probably be wearing his gray slacks and his turquoise-and-white striped shirt). And in perfect contrast with my wish for time to quicken until that moment, I hope that once that moment arrives that time will drag, prolonging the following four days into four weeks.

How is it that I could want two completely different things from something void of both the ability and disposition to oblige me on either account? It reminds me of something Maid Marion told Robin Hood when he mentions his plans for a future home and a family full of love:

"Men speak conveniently of love when it serves their purpose, and when it doesn’t ‘tis a burden to them.”

I feel a lot the same way about time. I can remember moments on my mission when I thought that two long years would never pass and I can remember moments after my mission looking back on it longingly and wondering where those two short years had gone.

This chronological conundrum seems to constantly make victims of us all, but I believe there is a way we can overcome it:

I can remember autumns as a teenager going to football practice day in and day out. I sometimes got so sick of spending so much time on the practice field that I often found myself envious of the kids that weren’t on the team who could just go home after school and spend their afternoon doing whatever they like.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like football practice—I really loved it: some of my fondest memories of youth are of the friendships formed as my teammates and I rallied together to endure both Coach Norris’ conditioning workouts and the stench of middle linebacker, Sean Dolph’s, unwashed practice uniform—its just that I was so tired of the redundancy and the seeming restrictions it put on my free time, that I often found myself chomping at the bit for practice to be over just so I could go home and do whatever I felt like doing.

It wasn’t until about midway through my senior year that I realized that my football career was finite. I had seen the opening sequences of Rudy and I’d watched as two grades’ worth of Kentwood High football players before me walked off the field after their last practice, never to return to strap on a set of shoulder pads again. And for a moment I stepped out of myself and looked on the situation from a third-person perspective. I could see that football was about to end in six short weeks, but that my life would go on for many long years, and the memories of the old man I saw there were the recollections of what my young self was doing today.

It then became my decision as to what sort of memories I would hand down to that old man. Would they be memories of shirked commitments or of persistant determination? I decided then to enjoy every drill, every down, every dog-pile, and every dry heave of every day.

Today, I’m not yet the old man I envisioned, but I am at an age where the only football I participate in is either with food in my hands or flags on my hips, and when I look back on my memories of what it was like to be inside a huddle or under a gang tackle, I can’t help but get emotional—partly out of envy for that young me I watch enjoying each tackle and every touchdown, and partly out of gratitude for that same kid, for looking beyond himself, for taking a selfless moment to think of me, the man he'd grow up to be.

"Well, good luck—for both our sakes. You've made a real difference in my life. See you in the future."
"You mean the past?"
"Exactly."

Take a minute today to look beyond yourself to the you of the future. What sort of memories are you providing for him/her? Are you bitterly wishing that you were where or when you'd choose to be, or are you makeing of that moment something you'll be able to respect and appretiate at a later date? I hope the future memories I'm creating are ones of enjoying myself in whatever or whenever I’m situated, despite how distant it may be from whatever it is that I’m waiting for, because nobody wants to look back on their younger years and realize himself to have been a sourpuss.

“This one for a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away: to the future… to the horizon…never his mind on where he was (hmm?) what he was doing (hmm.)”

The Big Set-Up

Today at work, a girl from accounting told me she had a friend she wanted to set me up with. That makes the ninth time someone at work has offered to set me up with a girl—which is an astounding number considering we only have 14 people in our office and I’ve only been working here for seven months.

I don’t mind getting set up. Heaven knows I haven’t been meeting any girls that catch my fancy by my own efforts (and don’t think that I haven’t been trying), so why not trust the eyes and ears of those around me—after all, nearly every job I’ve ever had I was introduced to through a network of acquaintances, so why shouldn’t that work when it comes to meeting girls to date?

In the past year, I have been set up by best friends, arch nemeses, roommates, neighbors, co-workers, bosses, old girlfriends’ roommates, my great aunt, the wife of my second cousin, students from my missionary-teaching days, and strangers in the hall. I’m supposed to show up for traffic school in three weeks, and I’m sure I’ll manage an offer or two there as well.

The offer is usually proposed in this manner: The one offering will make an inquiry concerning my marital status. “…you’re not even dating anyone!” they often repeat (either for clarification or for justification of what they’re about to put me through). “Well, I’ve got someone who’d be just perfect for you, what’s your type?”

At this age, I’ve gone on enough mismatched set ups to recognize red-flags in the approach of the one offering to set me up. If she says, “someone perfect for you,” before she even investigates “what’s [my] type,” chances are that the girl she’s thinking of probably isn’t perfect for me. Chances are quite the opposite—I’m probably more perfect for her and that’s why she considers me a perfect match before she even knows what I’d like to be matched with.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I must say that in nearly every date I’ve been set up on, I’ve felt like the one doing the arranging was doing more of a favor for the girl, than for me. In fact, I’m often left a little confused and somewhat offended by the idea that the one who set us up ever imagined that I would be interested in the girl they lined me up with. In many cases it seems the only thing I have in common with these girls is that we’re both unmarried.

In nearly every case, the one offering their aphrodisiatic services is either happily married, or of some familiar relation to the female specimen. The trouble with those related to the girl is that they are often looking more for the girl’s gain than for a match that would be mutually beneficial. An example of this would be a friend who described her cousin as “a little heavy and not the cutest girl, but she’s really sweet and is looking for someone to date.”

The trouble with married people acting as intercessor is that the very nature of being married weakens a person’s ability to judge potential attraction—I’ll explain. Every couple has had to find each other, and they all have tell-able tales of how they met, but it’s also true that everyone will tell you that marriage isn’t easy. The difficulty of marriage is what disables a married person from successfully appraising the potential of any other, unmatched couple.

Why? Because married people’s focuses have moved from appraising potential to managing compatibility. Married people have already appraised and approved of their mate and their inter-gender efforts are now spent on tolerance and compatibility—as it should be. They no longer need to look for a potential mate, but work at maintaining the best relationship possible with the mate with whom they’re coupled.

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do—not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”

Just as the practice of a skill will improve our ability therein, so does the neglect of a skill deteriorate one’s expertise. Married people have abandoned the skill of spouse seeking and therefore suck at it. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to not belong to anyone—to look for someone with whom things seem to click on so many levels—heck, they’ve even forgotten what the levels are, because according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once a need is met (in this case physical, social, and/or spiritual attraction) it is abandoned as the individual(s) progress(es) on to the next unmet need.

This difference in paradigm between single and married life causes the married person to assess a girl as a good match for me, not be cause I would be attracted to her and she to me, but because (in the married person’s eyes) that girl and I would be domestically compatible. Instead of thinking, “you like brunettes and she’s a brunette,” their thought process is, “you like watching football and she likes watching football—so, there’s something you two wont fight over,” when really I could care less if my future wife likes to watch football—my love for football is something I’d gladly sacrifice if the reward for said sacrifice was to spend my life with a woman whom I sincerely cared for.

By this rationale, the only person who is truly qualified to assess the potential attraction between two people is a single person. But that’s not true either—a single person’s primary objective is to change their own single status as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible. The honest single person will be too engaged in their own efforts to take the time to sincerely help another. Those who try to contradict my last statement are either trying to deceive you or are themselves deceived.

If a guy came to me and said he had the perfect girl for me, I’d know by his very mentioning of her to me that she wasn’t truly perfect, for if she were, he’d want her for himself.

And if a girl told me that she wanted to line me up with someone who I was “simply made for” I wouldn’t trust her either, because she obviously doesn’t see my entire potential, for if she did, she’d want me for herself. The fact that she’s willing to pawn me off to another girl proves that she doesn’t think the world of me—so what kind of girl, may I ask, would she think I was “simply made for”? A girl who (by her reconning) has fallen just as far short of desirable as I have—that’s who.

Now, obviously, these are some pretty broad generalizations, and as we’ve all learned in third grade English class: there are exceptions to every rule, I still tolerate my being set up by a friend for a blind date—after all, you never know if you’d like a girl until you meet her. But experience has taught me that chances are good that I wont like her, so I’ve developed some rules of my own.

1.) I only accept blind dates on weekdays—weekends are far too fun and far too valuable to risk wasting on someone you’re not sure you’ll ever want to see again.

2.) A blind date should not be expected to last longer than an hour—suppose it ends up being obvious that things aren’t working right off the bat, you don’t want to be tied down to any formalities of extending the date to meet any standards of propriety.

3.) Never agree to meet a blind date for dinner—it is ungentlemanly to expect a girl to pay for a first date, but you don’t want to commit to blowing your dough on a dame that you don’t even know if you’ll like, so plan on meeting for ice cream or hot chocolate.

“You're pirates! Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway."

As you can see, these rules were designed with the worst case scenario in mind—that being a date with a girl to whom you are not attracted to in the least. But each rule is available for breaking, and the extent to which you break a rule is left to your discretion and often has a direct correlation to how attracted you are to the girl.

All my opinions on this matter may leave you thinking that I’m a little bitter toward dating—that’s not the case at all. I’m very optimistic about meeting a girl who makes me feel everything I long for and know that I’m capable of feeling. I can’t wait to meet her, and I expect she’s out there this very moment wondering why I don’t find her sooner.

I think about her a lot and I pray for her often. I pray that she’s enjoying life and dating and the long wait to find me. I pray that she’s saving herself for me in many of the same ways that I’m saving myself for her. I pray that she goes through enough hard times to keep her from being too emotionally slouchy, yet that she receives enough relief from those hard times that she never forgets that God is still looking out for her—that same God who is looking out for me—that same God that is giddy at the idea of how happy we’ll both be when He leads us to each other. I wonder if He loses sleep at night with the excitement of the thought of me and her being together, the same way my mom can’t sleep on Christmas Eve because she’s so excited to see how happy her kids will be the next morning.

"I get a kick out of..."

I’m way into Frank Sinatra’s music. He’s got an old classic called I Get a Kick Out of You. In the song, he goes on and on about things that a lot of people love but that just don’t do it for him (champagne, airplanes, etc), and the only thing he gets a kick out of is the girl he loves (even if she obviously doesn’t adore him).

I often feel quite the opposite. I can’t think of a single girl I know that I get a kick out of—in fact, I couldn’t sleep last night because I was so concerned about the fact that of all the girls I’ve ever met, I can’t think of a single one I wish I were married to. But there are some things that I enjoy so much that I’m not always spending sleepless nights worrying over girls that I haven’t even met yet.

There are some things that I am so taken by that I lose sleep simply because I lie in bed thinking about how cool they are. To list a few: Star Wars, Disneyland, Superheroes, sports, holidays, etc. I never focus on the same thing all year round, yet I seldom focus on more than one thing at a time. This focus can be referred to as a kick, trip, phase, or any other noun representing a period of extreme concentration on and enjoyment from one thing or another.

I doubt that everyone can entirely relate to the idea of going through kicks. I bet some people never experience it at all—like the way some people never experience liver failure—I think kicks are hereditary. I know my dad has a medical history of kicks—a pretty traumatic one. I’ve seen pictures of him in a tailor-made replica of James T. West’s costume from the Wild, Wild West TV series, and I’ve heard stories of him writing “Colt 45” in stead of his name on the top of a spelling test when he was in grade school. So I know I’m not alone in experiencing these blessed events, and I expect the children I someday have will also be able to enjoy them.

In case you’re one of the less fortunate who are unfamiliar with kicks, let me walk you through the life cycle of a kick. Most kicks begin by no effort on my part, in fact, I’m usually enjoying a different kick when a new one approaches. We’ll take my most recent Disney kick for an example:

There I was, minding my own business, enjoying a very rich and rewarding Spider-Man kick—not even a week had gone by since I had watched all the special features on my Spider-Man DVD, bought a Spider-Man web slinger toy that shoots silly string from the wrist, and was planning to purchase the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack, when all of a sudden the Haunted Mansion DVD I placed a hold on 3 months earlier (during a previous cycle of the Disney kick) was finally available for pick-up at the local public library.

I picked it up without even as much as an inkling that my Spider-Man kick was being threatened. When I got home I popped the Haunted Mansion DVD into my player, and all of a sudden I was taken by the mystery, the magic, the music, and the motif of this classic Disneyland ride. The movie begins with a haunting voice bidding, “Welcome foolish mortals…” complete with spooky pipe-organ music—exactly like the very beginning of the ride at Disneyland.

I watch the movie and with each reference to the ride, both obvious and obscure I am lulled deeper and deeper into this Disney-anic trance. The movie ends, but the DVD experience goes on. Special features allow me to re-experience the ride, convert my computer’s desk top theme into a house of haunts, and even convert some of my own pictures into goulish, post-life portraits.

I skim through pictures of my most recent trip to Disneyland. With each picture an inner voice prods this Disney kick along. There’s the picture of Ty, Dustin, and Matt walking into the Haunted Mansion—Dude, it looks exactly the same in the movie as it does at the park—I need to go back to Disneyland soon! There’s the speaking skull from Pirates of the Caribbean—I have the soundtrack to that movie, I’ll listen to it in the car tonight. And there’s the picture of me trying to pull the sword from the stone—I haven’t seen that movie forever, I’ll rent it and watch it tomorrow.

Down time at work is spent visiting the Disney website. I look over the map of the Magic Kingdom and add to my wealth of Disney knowledge. Say, did you know that the tree house at Disneyland is Tarzan’s Treehouse, but the one at DisneyWorld is the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse? I peruse their Walt Disney Pictures page and notice that I still haven’t seen “Around the World in 80 Days”—Oh, I’ll see that with my Dad and sisters when I visit home. And I never got out to see “Home on the Range”—Well, that will be on DVD soon enough. And speaking of DVD’s, looks like there will be a new Mickey, Donald and Goofy movie out in a week: The Three Musketeers. I look over some of the still pictures from the movie—That’s freakin’ hilarious: Mickey’s girlfriend is a mouse, Donald’s is a duck, but Goofy’s is a cow—poor Goofy.

At the grocery store, products I’d never noticed before suddenly begin to surface: Winnie the Pooh’s Hunny B’s cereal, Disney Princess band-aids and Buzz Lightyear tooth brushes. One of the troubles with being on a kick of any sort is that even if you are frugal by nature, suddenly every expense within your current kick seems not only justifiable, but mandatory. At the end of a typical trip to the grocery store I return home with Mickey Mouse fruit snacks, Donald Duck orange juice, and Peter Pan peanut butter (which isn’t even the Disney Peter Pan, but if I can find a way to make a mental connection, my wallet finds a way to make a monetary contribution).

The end of a kick doesn’t come by choice, and seldom do kicks simply fizzle out. A kick usually passes at the coming of a new kick—not a kick on something new—usually a new kick of something you’ve always loved only you’d been so distracted with other kicks that you’d forgotten how awesome that forgotten love was, and as soon as you’re reminded, the current kick slips through the cracks and falls victim of your newest mania.

In the case of my Disney kick it has fallen victim to Star Wars Mania. This past weekend, while still going strong with my Disney kick (I even had Disney music in my car and a few Disney movies in my pillow case), I headed down to Provo to spend stay over Saturday night with my good friend Dustin (aka, D$ or Glaige). He told me about these new Star Wars short cartoons called Clone Wars and showed me the first few—I was hooked. We watched all 20 and then spent the rest of the night in an epic video-game lightsaber duel. He sent me home with a copy of all those Star Wars cartoons. And, well, to make a long story short—I couldn’t tell you where in the world I’ve put my Disney’s Beauty and the Beast picture frame, but last night I dusted off my sound-effects light saber and I’ve got it propped against the wall right next to my bed. You see, as one kick passes a new one begins. My Star Wars kick will likely end when the new football season begins, and that kick will end when the Seahawks start doing poorly. Then a Halloween kick begins, which will fall victim to a Christmas kick--full of all its own movies, music, stories, treats, activities and pasttimes.

I love going through kicks. I love it the same way I love to see the grey of winter melt into the color of spring. And just as summer heat brings you closer to those friends of yours who love to go swimming, the equinox of a new kick draws you closer to those friends who love Star Wars as much as you do.

To be important again

So, yesterday I got an e-mail from a girl I was co-counselors with at EFY last summer. She’s going on a mission and invited me to her farewell. She said a lot of our EFY kids would be there too.

It kind of freaked me out to hear that I might see those kids again. That all seems so long ago. My life is so different now than it was when I was a counselor. They’re all going to expect to see the same old Counselor Heath that seemed to understand every problem and have every answer. When they see me, are they even going to recognize the new me?

“He’s Peter Pan all right, Captain, he’s just been away from Neverland for so long, his mind’s been ‘junk-tified.’ He’s forgotten everything.”

My life’s not so different now that I’m any less religious than I was then, but being a counselor, or an MTC teacher for that mater, your entire life from 5:30 am til 11:30 pm is all about thinking about those kids, praying for those kids, teaching those kids, worrying about those kids, hoping for the best for those kids, and sometimes even learning from those kids.

My life is so different from that now. Instead of waking up and thinking, “what are my kids going to learn today,” I’m waking up and thinking “what newspapers are my clients going to advertise in today?” My life has turned from concerning myself with the physical, social, and spiritual well being of 10-14 kids to concerning myself with full-page, 60 second, and paid programming advertising rates. My focus was people and now its objects. I used to live in a dorm on the same floor with kids who trusted my every word and believed I could do no wrong, now I live alone in a complex with people so full of distrust that they all look at me as if I were a registered sex offender, just waiting for the second they take their eyes off me so I can kidnap and run off to have my way with their children.

I miss the days of 15-year-old kids opening up to me about doubts they had with their faith, of brand new missionaries with suits so new the tags were still on them who were so desperate to be effective that they took notes of how I said things, even when it was something as simple as me introducing myself. I miss the days when even my very demeanor was being watched and imitated by kids and missionaries who identified me as the kind of person or the kind of missionary they wanted to be.

When I see those kids again, are they still going to think those things about me, even though now in my daily prayers I ask for successful business for the company I work for instead of asking for Penn to feel accepted by his friends, or for Ben to make it through the day without passing out from heat exhaustion again, or for Benson to shut up and listen to the lesson because it will do more good for him than he expects?

One thing that makes me think they will, that they will still see the kind of person they hope to be, is that I’m still trying just as hard as I was then to be the best person I can be. I’m still trying to live life the best way I know how and I’m still asking for God to help me as I do.

As I wrestle with this concern I’m reminded of a picture of Jesus my sister had in hanging on her bedroom wall. It showed Jesus washing his apostles feet and the caption read,

“Its nice to be important, but its more important to be nice.”

And even though I might not be in such an important a position as to work with kids and mold their lives, I’m still doing all those things I told them they needed to do to be happy. And all those things are still the things that make me happy. So I guess, in a way, my life now is proof that I’ve put my money where my mouth is, and that all those things I told them are still true, because they’re still working for me.

Too Much of a Good Thing

They say that sometimes bad things can happen to good people. Well I guess sometimes it can happen more than once: I crapped my pants again yesterday, it must have been the third time this year (and the year’s not even three-quarters of the way over yet—yikes!).

Looking at this post's title, you must be thinking, “Okay, so I understand the ‘too much’ part, but if you consider that a ‘good thing,’… you’ve got some explaining to do.” The ‘good thing’ refers to the 30 plus servings of Fruit Leather I’ve eaten in the past 4 days.

Now that I’m out of school and into a desk job, I’m finding myself more hungry and less active than ever. The problem is that now I’m not getting the exercise of the 3-5 miles per day trudging back and forth from campus, coupled with an income that allows me to buy, and subsequently, eat what ever I get a hankering for. I expect the result to be me sporting a ten-gallon gut, just like everone else who’s been working at my office since they graduated from college.

Thus begins my quest to find nutritious snacks that will satisfy the occasional case of the munchies yet not throw my caloric intake/spend ratio way out of balance.

"I've heard this bedtime story before."

"Eternal life, Dr. Jones. The gift of youth to whoever drinks from the grail.

Now, that's a bedtime story I'd like to wake up to."
"An old man's dream.”
"Every man's dream. Including your fathers, I believe.”

My dad is really into this kind of thing—he’s a snacker, but a health-conscious one. I’ve seen him go with rice cakes, granola bars, yogurt—most anything that’s good for you (or at least not bad for you) and good tasting, he’s tried it. I’m looking for the same kind of thing: something with flavor that does no—to little nutritional damage.

My most recent discovery in this crusade has been Stretch Island Fruit Leather from Costco. Its sort of like fruit roll-ups, but thicker and no-sugar added. Its really just dehydrated fruit mashed into a book-marker-sized snack. It comes in an assortment of colors and flavors, but they all pretty much taste the same.

Still, I like the flavor and they have no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium, and only 12 carbs. Now, I’m not much of a Nutrition Facts reader, so I don’t really know what any of what I just said means, but I mention it just to impress anyone reading who does understand it.

“The best thing about visiting the President is the food! Now, since it was all free, and I wasn't hungry but thirsty, I must've drank me fifteen Dr. Peppers.”

Fruit Leather is delectable. I love it as much as I loved fruit roll-ups as a kid, and--with no worries about its effect on my sitiology--I binge to my heart’s delight.

“Well, ya can’t please everybody.”

Whereas my heart was delighted, my stomach was not. I’d always heard that too much fruit can throw your insides outta whack, so I’ve never been foolish enough to sit down and eat a hole bunch of grapes, a hole bushel of apples, or a whole flat of strawberries, but I never put two and two together that eating a slew of Fruit Leathers would have the same effect.

If fruit is nature’s dessert, then my gastric intestinal track must be nature’s after-dinner entertainment. My stomach was twistin’ and turnin’ all afternoon. I figured it was just gas—being a young man my age, you get that from time to time--but it only got worse as the evening came. I had plans to see a movie with friends, but decided that even if it was as harmless as gas, in the quantities I was experiencing I was in no condition to go out into public. So I stayed home and watched movies—my insides romping around as violently as Ray Balls’ engine did the time we drove to Moses Lake and back without a drop of oil in the motor.

“I'm so rumbly in my tumbly…Oh, I wouldn't climb this tree if a Pooh flew like a bee…"

Well, last night it flew faster than a bee. It flew so fast that, not only did I not get to climb any trees, but it postponed every other activity as well. One second you think you’ve got nothing but innocent flatulence; the next minute you’re reading the back label of your laundry detergent researching how to properly pre-treat stains.

One thing I’m grateful for is that even though I’m way too old to be crapping my pants, at least I’m not to old to get a good laugh out of it. As I stripped down for my impromptu shower last night, I just laughed and laughed at myself.

“All children, except one, grow up.”

Pastries and Mormon Bachelorhood

I belong to a religious culture in which a 25-year-old bachelor is a man beyond his prime. It is expected of any good Mormon boy during his teen-age years to officiate in select weekly worship activities, at the age of 19 he is to leave home for two years to promote the church (this time is more-or-less considered a boy’s coming of age into manhood), and upon returning from his mission, he is to marry a good Mormon girl and complete his education.

There is an urban legend that early Mormon leader Brigham Young once said that any unmarried man over the age of 25 is a menace to society. I haven’t found anything to lead me to believe that he ever really said that but he did say once that he wanted “every man in the land older than 18 to take a wife” (deseretnews.com). And respected early church leader George Q. Cannon once said, "I am firmly of the opinion that a large number of unmarried men, over the age of 24 years, is a dangerous element in any community" (deseretnews.com).

Neither of these quotes represents a doctrinal position of the church stating that a young man of my age should already be married, nevertheless there is a cultural expectation for returned missionaries to marry while they’re young, and there is a common assumption that those of us not married by this age must have “issues.”

“Have you ever tried... not being a mutant?”

I guess I do have issues—well just one: I’d like to marry a girl that I feel like marrying.

For me, marriage isn’t something that you do just because you should (thankfully, I don’t get any pressure on this matter from my family), its something you do when you find a girl that you a.) like to hang out with, and b.) like to look at.

Ever since I’ve returned from my church mission I’ve been on the look out for such a girl, but I haven’t found too many that even come close. Some are fun to look at, others are fun to hang out with, but they never seem to be both in one convenient marry-able package.

A lot of the people around here treat my marital status as a medical condition, and they are constantly looking for remedies. “Maybe your standards are just too high.” “You know, there’s no such thing as the perfect girl.”

I don’t think people understand how silly that all sounds. There are too perfect girls, I’ve met them and I’ve dated some of them and I didn’t like them. I feel like part of what makes me who I am are my quirks and flaws, and I’ve dated girls that didn’t have either—they seemed to lack personality.

I’ve dated girls that I’ve thought were fun and girls that I’ve thought were pretty. I’ve met girls that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of, and I’ve had friends that I connect with on so many levels that I sometimes wonder how it is possible for an idea or a feeling that starts in my brain, to end up coming out of his/her mouth.

There’s an old saying that “you can’t have your cake and eat it too,” which people use when they’re trying to say “you can’t have both, so choose one or the other.” But look at that adage again—you can too have your cake and eat it—maybe you can’t eat your cake and save it for later too, but as long as you have that cake—as long as its still in front of you—you can just go right on eating it.

All I want in a girl is one that I find both cute and fun. I’ll keep waiting to get married until I find a girl that can kill both those birds with one stone.

Subtley enjoying distractions

At work there are some things I have to do and some things I want to do… the trick is making time for both, yet giving the appearance of only doing the former. To make no time for fun is to pervert one’s productivity, but to focus soley on fun is to prevent productivity.

I’m a media buyer—my job is to purchase advertising time and space on TV, radio, and in newspapers. It’s my job to spend other people’s money, so I only have as much work as I am given orders to fill. This provides me with occasional moments, between buys, with nothing to do. I consider this to be discretionary time—we all have it, we all deal with it differently, but I’ve learned there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with it.

Why is there a right and a wrong? Well, it’s like this: deep down, every employer wants his employees to work themselves to the bone every second they’re on the clock, and every employee would rather be paid to do nothing. I say “deep down” because we all have ethical standards and/or limits to our attention spans that disallow us to categorize ourselves in either of the preceding categories, nevertheless there is an inner motivation—one that takes no effort to perpetuate (in fact most of our efforts go to suppressing it)—that is constantly pulling us in the direction of either the nazi employer or the lazy employee.

“Search your feelings you know it to be true.”

Since I don’t write anyone’s paycheck, I am subject to the temptations of the lazy employee --wanting to be paid, but not wanting to work—as do the majority of my co-workers. As an employee, it's important for me that my employer maintains the idea that I am a hard worker--to admit that I work to help him perpetuate that opinion, is not a confession of deception--quite the contrary--I am a very hard worker and I've got the work and the results to show it, but there are moments when I've got no work to work hard on--it's those moments that you want to protect your employer from--you want to avoid giving your boss the opportunity to associate you with down time.

All of us here at my job are in 10 x 10 foot cubicles, which are open aired (no tops) with entrance openings no wider than three feet. So, during those discretionary moments, a person is unmonitored and thus free to do to whatever they like, but they need to be sure to at least look busy during those split seconds in which they can be seen by anyone who might pass their cubicle’s opening. It’s not difficult, because you can always hear someone approaching with plenty of time to ‘alt-tab’ out of the espn.com screen or mindsweeper game window and into a work-related spreadsheet.

There is no breech of ethics in enjoying one’s discretionary time, so long as you take care of every responsibility within your power. Many employers understand that their employees won’t stay busy all the time, but even so, you don’t want to go around broadcasting that you have free time with no work to do because that could shed a bad light on your work to your employer’s view, or on your company to a client’s view.

Like any indulgence, you don’t want to give those around you the impression that all your time is spent indulging. Indulgences should be enjoyed deliberately yet discretely.

"Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away."

Enjoying discretionary time should never overtly be the main focus of any moment. One must always maintain the pretense that they are indeed busy, activities that can be enjoyed from the same sitting position from which work is accomplished are ideal for maintaining that façade.

One of the other media buyers here drives me crazy. He’s one of those people that takes pride in being better than others—so he thrives on finishing his work before anyone else. The work we do is mostly behind-the-scenes stuff and finishing early doesn’t attract (or warrant) a lot of attention, so this co-worker of mine will spend his down time pacing around the office making a scene about how bored his is—it’s an elaborate display of well-rehearsed eye rolling and deep, despairing sighs.

“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”

Sometimes it makes me nervous to see him flaunting his free time. Sooner or later someone’s going to say, “Jeez, the media buyers seem to be wasting a lot of time, let’s put them incharge of buying media and scrubbing the toilets.” When I see this guy walking around I feel like a veteran army captain who knows that if you want to stay alive, you stay down and keep your head lower than the trench. This co-worker of mine is like a brand new private, fresh out of basic and so proud to be at war that he struts around the trench, standing tall enough for the enemy to see him—thinking he’s impressing them by his mere presence, when really he’s just making a target of himself. Whenever my co-worker does that I feel like yelling at him to stay low and get back into his fox hole (cubicle).

“Oh, shucks, Trigger. It’s only Nutsy. And criminently! Get back to your patrol. On the double. Get!”
“I’m a-getting, I’m a-getting”
“That Trigger. He’s getting everybody edgy…”

The wise soldier keeps his head down and waits for the open-fire order before he stick’s his neck out. It’s the best way to ensure that you’ll be ready to fight when the time comes. Who knows what he does before the order is given. Some soldiers write letters, others read books. As for me, I busy myself with computer solitare, or I research internet topics like the Apollo space program, or how they get sugar out of sugar cane, or how much Old Yeller costs to get on DVD.

"Previously on 24..."

Last October my roommates and I were introduced to 24—it’s FOX’s anti-terrorist show starring Kiefer Sutherland. Each episode is independently entertaining, but there is a deepened satisfaction in seeing events unfold through the perspective of knowing everything that has led up to and contributed to the present situation. So, in an effort to keep the viewer up to speed, each episode opens with the words, “Previously on 24…”, and the first minute or two of footage is a recap of what took place the week before.

Well this first blog posting is not so much intended to catch your interest, rather to catch you up on where I am in life: These are the kind of things you would hear my own voice narrate in the prologue of a movie where-in by the end of the film I emerge as the hero who has powers once unimaginable, but in the beginning I’m just your average no-body.

“Who am I? You sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tale... if somebody told you I was just your average ordinary guy, not a care in the world... somebody lied.”

Heath Thomas Bryant: born the 28th of December, 1978—just in time to earn my parents all the tax breaks of having two dependents, even though I was only around three days before the end of the fiscal year. I was named by my father, who determined at the age of 14 that his first-born son would be named after two of his favorite TV cowboy heros: Heath Barkley (Lee Majors’ character from ABC’s The Big Valley) and James T. West (Robert Conrad’s 19th century secret-service agent from CBS’s Wild, Wild West).

Mom was pretty open minded about the name, but insisted that the middle initial, ‘T’, stand for something normal that I could defer to if I didn’t like the name Heath. Well, I love the name—it’s normal enough that few people have a hard time reading or pronouncing it, and unique enough that hardly anyone ever has any preconceived notions about what kind of guy a guy named Heath would be—as they may have with names like Butch, Adolph, or Carlton.

"Seven."
"Seven Costanza... You're serious?"
"Yeah. It's a beautiful name for a boy or a girl. Especially a girl... Or a boy."
"I don't think so."
"What, you don't like the name?"
"It's not a name. It's a number."
"I know. It's Mickey Mantle's number. So not only is it an all-around beautiful name, it is also a living tribute."

Born and raised in the Seattle area, I grew up loving superheros, sports, and Saturday-morning cartoons. Not much has changed in the past 25 years—within the past month I’ve bought a Spider-Man web-slinger toy (it straps to your wrist and shoots silly string when you close your two middle fingers), completed a city-leage soft ball season, and watched about 3-hours-worth of classic Donald Duck cartoons.

I was raised a Mormon and I believe every ounce of doctrine associated with the LDS church, but I sometimes find it hard to appreciate the sub-cultures found within the church’s membership.

My marital status is single, as it has been all my life—I have memories as early as the first grade of my wrestles with romance and most of the conflicts in my life surround the always unexpected adventures of exploring the frontier that is dating.

“The time-traveling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe: women!”