Hablar Español

I speaka English, but I learned Spanish on my church mission to Las Vegas. It was a wonderful experience—it taught me a lot about my religion and about their language and culture. After my mission my knowledge of Spanish has helped in several areas.

For one, teaching Spanish to missionaries who were just about to leave for their missions (a long with substatial parental backing) was what paid my way through college and helped me get out without any student-loan debts. It was a well-paying job, but what I really enjoyed about it was just being with the missionaries. I always enjoyed having a district full of elders who worshiped me and hung on every word I said—as if I were Yoda, but at the same time they were light hearted enough to poke fun at me and make each day not just work, but as much fun as just hanging out with the 12 little brothers I never had.

“You coulda been anywhere in the world, but you're here with me;
I appreciate that...”

I really did enjoy just being with those elders. I can remember one day just after the Jay-Z song, “H to the Izzo”, had become popular, I was assigned to a new group of really fun elders headed for Mexico City. It’s the missionary’s duty to discard all worldly interests (music, movies, activities) so they can focus on the work of preaching the good word and it’s the teacher’s job to help them along—the idea being, if the MTC teacher can set them straight at the start of their mission, they wont struggle with it for the remaining 22 months—so even though we always enjoyed joking about anything under the sun, I would try to avoid topics that might make them homesick for movies or music they used to like.

“Los estúdiantes son mis ámigos.”

But one day I was teaching a preterite (past tense) verb-conjugation lesson. As with any lesson, I posted the tenses for various verbs on the board: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person in both singular and plural forms. They were all quiet and diligently taking notes—each of them perfectly focused on his learning—but when I posted the preterite forms for the verb hacer (to do/to make) the elders just lost it. When I wrote the 1st person singular form: hizo (he/she does/makes—pronounced ee-so) Elder Roberts, the self appointed class clown, who just moments before was very on task and very well behaved, looked up to make note of the verb and the bursted out, “Hey, look! H to the Izo!” The once somber class busted into roars of laughter—all composure was gone as everybody broke into song and chants of “Fo' sheezy my neezy keep my arms so freezy.”

I knew it was my job to reestablish the class’ quiet dignity—and eventually the moment passed, but it was all so funny, and those poor elders had been working so hard to be so good, that we all just took a break from being serious, purpose-driven grown-ups and for five minutes we were all kids again.

“Frah-Gee-Lay. Hmm, must be Italian.”

Spanish has also been a fun way to joke and communicate with roommates and friends. Bastardized phrases like chupe the peen (chupar la piña is Mexican slang for “making out”, but literally translated means “sucking pineapple”), ponchees (also slang for “getting action”), hace (hacer is a word used to denote temperatures--in Spanish it requires an adjective, but we use that one word to mean either “its too hot in here”, or “it’s freakin’ freezing outside”--its up to the situational context to determine that), no me goost (an abbreviation of the Spanish phrase meaning “I don’t like it/this/that”), and gras dude, gras (a show of gratitude among bros derived from gracias) have all made their way into the daily vocabularies and enriched the lives of me and my roommates—both Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers alike.

I have one issue with the Spanish language (well, any language for that matter)—and that is when people who’ve learned it as a second language, use their knowledge of it to show off.

“What? I'm sorry, where you speaking? No, I don't speak Spanish.”

On my mission and since, I’ve always been bothered by hearing two English speakers speak Spanish to each other—I would usually avoid it. Now, the speaking of Spanish among non-Spanish speakers is somewhat socially excusable. On the mission, for example, one is encouraged to speak the language all the time for practice and learning—and I have no problem with the humble student of language making honest efforts toward learning a new tongue.

“For those of you who don't habla espanol, El Niño is Spanish for: The Niño.”

But more often than not, the foreign language is spoken not for practice, but for show. Their eyes glaze over, they get a pompous air about them, and they speak, not to be understood but “to be seen [or heard] of men” and even God doesn’t approve of that (Matthew 23:5). Their intention is not to communicate with the listener, but to perform for him to the point that he is either impressed by the speaker’s knowledge, or intimidated it.

“Buzz, don’t be a moron.”

I’ve, also seen something similar when gringos who “hablan español” and don't often see other Spanish speakers, come across a Hispanic person. Its almost demeaning the way the gringo will begin a conversation with the Hispanic, not because he’s interested in getting to know the Hispanic or in any sort of exchange of ideas, but instead he sees that person as an object, like a tackling dummy, upon which he can hone his skills and practice his technique, or a podium from which he barks a self-promoting political campaign. Those self-centered intentions are obvious when the Spanish-speaking gringo makes few or no mistakes: the more imperfect the grammar and syntax, the more excusable the “practice” is.

The reason I've got this on my mind is because at church there are two new girls who are visiting for the next few months from Mexico. Generally, Mexicans are very easy going, and I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve known. They love to share what’s going on in their lives and to tease you about what’s going on in yours.

Marcela and Melisa are cute, fun girls and are becoming good friends. We’ll sit near each other and whisper jokes back and forth during classes. When I speak with them (or with a friend of any native tongue), its to enjoy their company, and I don’t care if anyone else can hear me, or if anyone else knows which language I’m speaking to them.

But just last week, we were in a small group and this guy, who made every effort to make it known to the entire group that he served his mission in Mexico, kept on bellowing Spanish comments in their direction. If anything remotely Spanish came up in the group conversation—he had something to say about it. Like if someone said they grew up in Los Angeles, he’d correct them infront of the group stressing a Spanish accent, “Oh… Lows-On-Hell-Ess!”

“Beat that you little trout sniffer.”

And what made it more annoying was the way he tried to cover up his true intentions (which were to show off) by trying to make it look like he was just contributing his encouragement and approval to the idea that that person was from LA (this was usually demonstrated by an overly exaggerated head nod in the direction of the Californian).

“A gentle smile often breeds a kick in the pants.”

I guess my complaint is against insincerity. I think it is a very stupid act. It not only makes a fool of the offender, but leaves behind it a wake of degraded victims. Sincerity begets friendship, and authenticity begets trust. The irony of selfishly trying to shed a positive light on oneself is that the person really ends up exposing his worst side and the shameful shadow cast by that self-projected positive light is the unfortunate silhouette of low self-esteem.

The Knute Rockne of fantasy football

“[Fantasy] football in America is a special game, a unique game. Played no where else on earth—it is a rare game. The men who play it make it so.”

The guys at work and I are in a fantasy football league together. I’ve never done fantasy football before, in fact, I’ve always considered it a pretty nerdy thing to do, but the more involved I get in the league, the more I enjoy it—and the older I get, the more I realize that I am a nerd.

The way fantasy football works is this… you put together a roster of players from various teams around the NFL. Each player is awarded so many points for his weekly performance—touchdowns, interceptions, fumble recoveries, and offensive yards are all ways in which a player can earn points. The league will match my team up with the team of a co-worker and whoever’s team has the most cumulative points that week, wins the game.

“Benny, why'd you bring that kid?”
“Because he makes nine of us.”
“Yeah yeah, so does my sister, but I didn't bring her along!”

The season begins with a draft. Everyone in the league (about 8-10 guys) log onto the internet at a specified time on a specified day and one by one, each guy picks an NFL player to be on his team. Just like picking teams at grade-school recess, all the best players go first. Once you get down to your last several picks, you’re pretty much just looking for either the best of the worst players or the worst of the best players—either way, it’s the guys you don’t plan on ever playing unless your star players get injured (each team gets 16 picks, but only 10 of them actually count toward your weekly score (it’s up to you which ten) the other six just ride the bench.

My favorite NFL team is the Seattle Seahawks. I love a chance to watch them play and I’m always checking their website Monday mornings to check the score if I missed a game. But I don’t really pay a lot of attention to the rest of the NFL. In order to put a good team together, you’ve got to know the league pretty well. Years of playing fantasy football will do that for you.

Enter account manager Kelly Conroy:

“With any luck, he's got the grail already”

Every story has an antagonist. Every schoolyard has a bully. And every fantasy football league has a ringer. Conroy is ours. He’s been doing this for years. He knows the height and weight of every player in the NFL. He knows their yards gained, their touchdowns scored, their shoe size and their mothers’ maiden names.

“Your friends up there on the Sanctuary Moon are walking into a trap. As is your Rebel fleet! It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them.”

It was Kelly’s idea we start up this league. It was Kelly who everybody went to for advice on which players to pick and how to manage their team. It was Kelly who we believe sabotaged the rest of us, because it is Kelly who’s got the only undefeated team and a cushy 48 point lead.

“Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure.”

I’ve lost once already this season, and I don’t plan on losing again. Only problem is that my Randy Dragons haven’t even faced off yet against Kelly’s TurboLax Attack. The one game I’ve lost so far was a close one (75-67 against Jeff’s Noonan), but looking forward to next week’s match up (Randy Dragons vs. TurboLax Attack) I’m a 24-point underdog.

“We’re gonna beat the army, Gus.”

“Oh, Rock…”

“No. We’re gonna beat ‘em. I got an idea. You see, all the eastern teams, like the Army, they’re all power—knock you down, run over you like a steam roller. All right—if you can’t go around the steam roller, you go over it.

No team has ever used the forward pass as the major threat of its offense; consequently, no team has ever had a good defense against it. Gus, we’re pass the Army—we’re gonna pass ‘em dizzy. Gimme that ball.”

“Rock! If that works, it’ll make history!”

Without a doubt, Kelly’s got the best team and the best players, and he’s been doing this for long enough that he knows the system backwards and forwards. But every giant has a weakness. With every game or sport, when you take a second to think of the freedoms allowed by the rules, instead of the restrictions imposed by them, you will discover new strategies, an unorthodox plan of attack.

“I saw something tonight—got the idea of a lifetime. Of a lifetime! Professor, Doc, I saw a show tonight in Chicago—chorus girls, a whole row of ‘em. What rhythm! It was like poetry just watching them move. Beautiful. Effortless. Effortless! Get the idea?”

“Chorus girls?”

“At your age, Rock?”

“No, no, no. But they gave me the idea for a new backfield shift. And, gentlemen, it will revolutionize the game—revolutionize it! No lost motion. No wasted momentum. Split second timing. I can see it now. And the public—the public will love it: it’s new, it’s colorful—great showmanship. And it’s new! IT’S NEW!”

For Knute Rockne and Notre Dame it was the forward pass and backfield motion. For me and the Randy Dragons it’s player selection. The nature of the fantasy football draft exhausts the league of the best players—ranked so by their passing, rushing, or receiving touchdowns and such. Consequentally, those are the first players to go, but there aren’t enough of them to go around to fill your entire roster, so you’ve got to fill some positions with a few players who maybe first string in that position on the team they play for, but as far as fantasy point production—they’re at the bottom of the totem pole.

“But now is the time to work and strain at a sport that tests the spirit and challenges the brain.”

But what if I could find a group of players that weren’t highly ranked (it’s usually the rank that people look at when selecting a player), but that could produce the points that a ranked player would? Well, I found the way.

“I found the clues that will safely take us through, in the chronicles of St. Anselm.”

The secret is in kick returners—especially those who play for really lousy teams. Your average kick will be returned to the 20 yard line (and in our league kick returners get 1 point per 10 yards). Say he plays for a team with a crumby defense, he’s going to be returning maybe 5 kicks per game (not including punts), that’s about 10 points per game—the best of my worst players before I made these moves was struggling to score 5 points per game. And if my kick returners play in a shut-out game where no scoring leads to no kick offs, they’ll score their points returning punts.

“The game is wide open. Nothing gets by. X’s and O’s on a blackboard are translated into imagination on the field. It can be one man rising above the obscurity of the grim, no-glory duty of special teams.”

And now I have a team full of stars (my first draft picks) and productive kick returners. No more are the days of team members who don’t score points. Now I’ve got a team full of guys who average at least 10 points a game!

“They can’t do that!”
“They just did—for 45 yards. That’ll revolutionize football!”

I’m going to beat Kelly’s TurboLax Attack. I’m going to beat him in a way he never saw coming. My team will score 100 points per game, and I’m going to do it with all the players you’ve never heard of.

“Alright, boys. The Army’s got us thirteen to nothing, and they’ve earned it—played us off our feet. Right off our feet! We’re not gonna win the second half… unless we have team work!That’s what this game needs is team work. We’re gonna send ourselves out as a unit. If we do that we’ve got nothing to worry about. We’re gonna go back in that second half and when we receive the kick off, I want you to use those heads all the time—I want you to be smart! I want the men in that back field to hit that line: right side, left side. Right side, Left side. Right, Left! RIGHT, LEFT all the time! Get ‘em on the run. Go on down that field—right down that field, over that old goal line with the [Randy Dragon] spirit!”

Morning Constitutional

“Weight can fluctuate from year to year.”
“Fluctuate? You make it sound like I'm retaining water. I've gained 45 pounds in a week! Pete, what's happening to me?”

I wouldn’t call it “getting fat”, but I weigh more now than I ever have in my life. Sure, it might just be an age thing, but I believe it’s a lifestyle thing too—and by lifestyle, I mean the switch from college to career:

In the past year, I’ve gone from college life: which consists of eating the most inexpensive life-sustaining provisions fit for human consumption coupled with a rigorous daily walking program (trekking to and from campus several times a day), to career life: eating whatever I want (because a full-time salary can afford it) and walking no further than the distance from my appartment to the car, and from the car to my desk.

“I don't know what's happening to you. You're starting to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

I’ve never been a real weight watcher, so I’m not really sure what I weighed during college, but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what it was, and arguably put on ten pounds over the past ten months. Sure, a pound a month isn’t too bad, but think of this—I just started my career, and if I continue this weight gaining pattern until I retire, when I turn 65 years old I’ll be weighing in at a cool 990 pounds.

“I don't know, Scott. You're as healthy as a horse.”
“Yeah! Clydesdale!”
“So what? You put on a little weight.”
“Weight? Does this look like a little weight to you?”

I work out regularly—each week I run about 6 miles, and swim about 1, I have a gym membership (and surprisingly, I use it), and ever since the day I started working here I’ve taken the stairs, never the elevator. I don’t feel out of shape at all, but there’s no question: I’ve got more abdominal girth than I’m used to having.

“Well, I haven't seen you since you was a baby, Harry. You're a bit more along then I would have expected; particularly around the middle.”

A friend of mine organizes local P.R. events for Subway (the sandwich company). Last month she put together a Heart Walk (walk-a-thon kinda thing) and Jared Fogle was in town to promote it. I didn’t get a chance to meet him (not that I’d care to), but I did see him in a TV interview one morning.

Here’s the dork’s bio: in March of 1998 Jared weighed 425 pounds. After a year of eating a subway diet and walking 1.5 miles per day, he lost 235 pounds.

I think this kid’s a geek, and I’m not entirely convinced that there’s nothing fraudulent about him. I don’t believe in the subway diet, but there is one part of his program that I do believe in, walking.

I hate to admit that I was inspired by Subway’s awkward poster boy, so I wont. In fact, for the past two months or so, I’ve been toying with the idea of walking to work, I think seeing him brag about walking (the same way Terrel Owens brags about burning a defensive back for a touchdown) just reminded me that it was something I wanted to start doing.

In college, I selected my living accommodations by determining which place had the cutest girls, or where I could live to be closer to my bros. Now that I live alone, and since most every apartment complex I’ve come across has neither cute girls nor bros, but Americans who don’t comb their hair or bathe their kids, and migrant workers who don’t speak English or possess a green card, I chose my current complex based on work commute convenience alone.

I live 9/16 of a mile from work. It takes me two minutes to drive. After four months of a 50 minute one-way commute from Provo, I was ecstatic about the micro commute. But now, the novelty of it has worn off, and the reality of my body’s withdrawals from not walking has taken over.

So for the past two weeks I’ve been walking to work—and I love it! At work, I’m stuck in a cubical all day, but walking gives me a chance to be outside, and to feel more in tune with the weather and the seasons. Its amazing how much more aesthetically appealing this state is when you’re not trying to pass through it as fast as possible.

“And the walking man walks,
Doesn't know nothing at all.
Any other man stops and talks,
But the walking man walks on by.
Walk on by.”

Walking also gives me time to think. It takes me about 10 minutes to walk one way, so after two round trips (I walk home for lunch), that’s 2 ¼ miles of exercise and 40 minutes with which to ponder.

Walking to work also breaks up the monotony of things. If I usually walk to work, then the days I drive to work (have errands to run during my lunch break) suddenly seem like special occasions.

The thing I don’t like about it is that everyone at work notices when I walk and when I don’t. When ever I drive, they look at me all confused and disapointedly declare, "You didn't walk today" as if they expect an explanation. It hasn't been a problem yet. I just tell them I've got institute right after work, or I need to get to the library before it closes, but what happens the day they confront me about not walking and it's because I have an appointment right after work with the proctologist?!

All in all, I think walking is a great thing. Its the kind of activity that both strengthens the body and relaxes the soul. If found that walking to work doesn't just slow the pace of my commute, but it slows the pace of my life--or at least the way I take things in. It unwinds the tension from my consciousness so I can approach the day calmly and courteously. This walking stuff's fun, I think I'll keep it up, even after the weather turns cold.

“And in the future, we don't need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles.”
“If everybody's got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?”
“Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun.”
“Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?”

Herr Pooch

“Mamma says he’s the best of the bunch. See? He don’t cry none when you pick him up by the neck hide.”
“Oh, that don’t mean nothin’. Its if his mouth’s black inside, that’s what counts.”

I can still remember the day we bought him. Mom said we could choose between an above-ground swimming pool in the back yard, or a dog. And well, with Disney’s 101 Dalmatians having been re-released only a few months earlier, the argument for a pool didn’t last long.

“We’ll have a Dalmatian plantation. A Dalmatian plantation, I say!”

I could vaguely remember a line from the movie when Cruella De’Ville was appalled by their ugly appearance when the puppies were born—something about their spots. The lady we bought him from promised he was a full bred Dalmatian and said that his splotchy spots would become more defined as he got older. It occurred to me about a year latter as I was looking at his black and white, pepper colored coat, that either that lady just doesn’t know as much about Dalmatians as she thought she did, or we didn’t know as much about that lady as we thought we did.

“Oh, Roger. You are an idiot.”

When he was a pup I can still remember thinking I’d never seen anything cuter and cuddlier in all my eleven-year old life. I wanted to play with him and hold him all the time, but of coarse, I had to split time with my sisters and he just slept so darn much. I can still remember carrying him over to my best friend Ray’s cul-de-sac, not necessarily for Ray to see him, but because, whenever the pup came, he had a magical ability to draw out the Nickels twins and the Farnsworth girls and all of a sudden, I felt like Don Juan D’Marco.

“He’s a HERO!”
“Then why’s he wear a mask, huh? What’s he got to hide?”

Aside from his smeared black spots, he had two big black patches that covered his ears and his eyes. It looked like he was wearing a mask, so… we named him Bandit. Mom usually called him “the pooch.” I think to this day, Mom still would have rather had a swimming pool :) and avoiding the use of a proper noun was a good way for her to keep from getting too attached. I don’t think I ever called him by his given name. I’d call him Poochie Kins, Mr. Pooch, Herr Pooch (German, of coarse, for Mr. Pooch), and Ray and I, one day, decided to put a Spanish twist to his name by calling him Bandito el Puppo.

As he got a little older he got more playful and considerably more rough. I still wanted him to be the same cuddly little pup that would snuggle up to me and sleep in my lap, so I would attempt to have sleep-over parties with him. I remember, as I got tired I’d get into my sleeping bag, while Herr Pooch was still bouncing off the walls with energy like he had a case of hydrophoby. I’d pin him down and pull him close to try to get him to cuddle up for a good night’s sleep and he’d squirm and scratch and bite his way out of my clutches.

“I am Wind in His Hair! Do you see that I am not afraid of you?”

I can remember him being too rough on a lot of occasions. Sometimes I’d come in after playing with him and have bright red streaks all up and down my arms and legs from where his nails had gotten me. And even though it hurt a lot, and even though he’d sometimes growl at me to convince me to let go of him when I was trying to coax him into being cuter or cuddlier than he wanted to be, I never wanted him to see me shy away from him. I figured if I just acted like I wasn’t scared of him, he’d stop trying to scare me. It worked to the point of me not being scared of him anymore, but I never did manage to convince him to be the teddy bear I always wanted him to be.

“Wait, Tinkerbell! We can’t keep up with you!”

During my high school years, I used to take him jogging with me. I enjoyed the idea of having him come along, but in all honesty, each time I took him, I questioned if he’d ever be invited again. I was jogging to keep in shape for high school sports, but Bandit never seemed to understand (or at least, respect) my training efforts. He’d either go way too fast, nearly pulling my shoulder out of the socket as he dragged me behind him, or way too slow as he stopped to pee on every mail box stand (sorry, to all my Winterwood neighbors), or to sniff the butts of all the other neighborhood dogs (on second thought, I take back that apology, serves you right for not chaining up your dogs).

My parents house is at the top of a small hill. For a little added conditioning, and for a chance at payback for him throwing off my pace, I’d always race the pooch up the hill. We’d start at the bottom of the hill, right where the road’s shoulder ended, then it was “first one to take a step onto the driveway wins.”

During high school, he’d beat me about six out of ten times. But after I got back from my mission, either I got faster or he got slower, because by then, I could beat him every time.

“He’s an old, fat grampa-man.”

I’d go away to college and each summer when I came home to visit, we’d go on our regular runs. Only, they weren’t seeming like the regular runs I remembered. It used to be that Bandit would drag me so hard that it made my shoulder sore and I could hear the leash constricting on his windpipe from the tension. Well, now the sore shoulder and the tight leash were still the same, but this time it was me doing the dragging and Mr. Pooch doing the lagging.

I told that story to my dad when I was visiting last month. He quickly said, “Oh, don’t take him out running now, you’d probably kill him.” I thought for a second that he was joking, until I went out to the garage to greet the pooch for my semi-annual visit.

“I’m old, Peter. Ever-so-much more than 20.”

I couldn’t believe what I saw. It used to be that Bandit would stick his nose in the door, ready to pounce on you as soon as you opened it just a crack. But this time as I entered the room he just lie there in his bed. He lethargically lifted his head to investigate the unwelcome disturbance to his sleep. He was, of coarse, happy to see me (who wouldn’t be), but he didn’t spring up and throw his front feet on my belly the way he used to. He weakly ambled over to me, tripping over his own feet as he came. And when he reached me, he only had enough energy to sit beside me and rest his head on my knee.

This dog looked like mine, but how could it be him? Why did he move so slowly? Why did his spine and his ribs stick out so much? Why did his eyes look so cloudy? Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that I’m not a kid anymore. And if I’m not a kid (and dogs age seven times faster than humans) my little, wild pup was now a 98-year-old porch hound.

Today Mom and Dad are taking him to the vet to be put to sleep. They said things were just getting too hard for him, and they were tired of the surprises left around the garage by his geriatric incontinence. I know it was well beyond his time to go, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me a little sad to say good-bye, especially since I’m too far away to tell him so myself.

“It’s all right, children. Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I am sure we shall never forget Tiny Tim or this first parting that there was among us.”

I never really considered myself to have been really close to that dog—he was just always too rough, too smelly, and too dirty to want to play with him every day. Still, I was a little sad when I first heard that the appointment with the vet had been made. And now, as I look back on all the things I did with that loveable mutt, and at how the events of him entering and leaving my life bookmark the beginning and end of my youth, I can’t help but shed a few boyish tears of both mourning and gratitude for that good old friend.

“Dances With Wolves, I am Wind in His Hair! Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?”

I’m gonna miss you, Boy.

Of Females, Women, Girls and Ancestors

Autumn leaves coloring the mountainside, football games to go to, and the return of a chill to the air—something about this time of year makes me really wish I had a girl to enjoy it with.

“This promotion throws into sharp relief that which I have not yet achieved: a marriage to a fine woman. You have become a fine woman, Elizabeth.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, I’m a bit nervous myself.”

I’m not sure what it is about autumn in particular. Stories always prejudice spring as the season when a young man’s otherwise boyish interests are turned to things romantic, but for me its always been fall. Maybe its all of the school years conditioning me into believing that this is the season for new faces and new friends—but then I’ve never met and dated a girl in the fall, so that couldn’t be it.

It may be anticipation for the holidays—I’ve always thought it would be tons of fun to have a girlfriend to enjoy the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons with. I think a lot of it is feeling like I’m in a rush, like I’m trying to beat the clock and find someone before those fun holidays begin.

Maybe it’s the colder weather. A girl I over heard complaining one day a few years ago as I was trudging through the snow on my way to campus may have said it perfectly. She moaned, “It’s too cold to be single!”

I don’t always have girls on the brain—well, lets say, I don’t always have meaningful relationships with girls on the brain—so it’s ironic that the few times that I do, I look around and I don’t see a single girl who’s anywhere near what I’m looking for.

For you to understand my dilemma, I’ll need to outline a few definitions, because any fool could see that half the population I encounter on a daily bases are female, and of those a good portion of them must be eligible, right? Wrong!

First of all, let’s take the female gender. It consists of presumably half the human population. But the female persuasion consists of three subcultures—phylum if you will: females, women, and girls. Each single male unconsciously categorizes women using these groupings, but due to matters of personal preference, all bachelors do not necessarily categorize each woman equally.

Scientifically, female is merely the opposite of male. Webster’s defines female as “of, relating to, or designating the sex that produces ova or bears young.” But socially, a female is a narrower category consisting of any non-male who is unmarried, yet, for any reason at all, you (or I, mostly) do not consider as a potential mate. Sisters, widows, the homely, the socially awkward, the “too pretty”, the high maintenance, and those too young to take seriously are some of the many members of the female category.

A woman is any non-male, attractive or otherwise, who is married. Usually we unmarried men don’t distinguish women from females when we find the specimen unattractive. It’s the pretty ones, the ones we wouldn’t mind being coupled with ourselves, but are already spoken for, which we consciously identify as “women”.

And the rest are girls. A girl is any non-male to whom we are attracted to to the point that we wouldn’t mind sitting next to on a very crowded bean bag. A girl doesn’t achieve this status by looks alone, but looks are usually the most efficient means to that end.

With those three categories (female, woman, and girl) understood, I can more accurately explain my frustration. At times like this, when I am ready and willing to meat a girl I look around and all I see are women and females.

When a bachelor is on the prowl, he never even notices the female. On the romantic radar, females don’t generate as much as a blip—they are completely indistinguishable from males.

He always notices women, but the excitement of zeroing in on her as a target is squelched as soon as he gets close enough to see the ring or hear her annoying babbling-on about “my husband this” or “my husband that”.

So, come with me now into the cockpit of the fully trained lady killer. His fighter jet is equipped with machine guns, bombs, missiles, rockets, and a never-tiring radar system, set to detect even the faintest of frequencies. And although I find myself surrounded in the rush-hour of air traffic, none of the surrounding air craft show up on the radar as potential targets. Everything out there is either a male, female, or woman. No girls.

Enter my new singles ward.

“This is what I call a target rich environment.”

My new ward is brimming with attractive girls—and by girls, I mean “girls.” After months of no radar activity at all, you can imagine how relieved I was to finally be in a combat zone again—an area where my mad skills can be put to use (“mad skills”—I think that’s the term the young folk are using these days to describe a proficiency in something, be it dating, athletics, or otherwise).

Well, with these “mad skills” and my extensive knowledge of the female-woman-girl theorem, I figured it would be no time before this Top Gun had his first kill.

“If you think I'm going to Delhi, or anyplace else with you, THINK AGAIN, BUSTER!”

I’ve been going to this ward for several months now, and I’ve yet to get a missile lock on any girls. The problem is that in a ward that’s about 50 percent male, 35 percent “female,” and 15 percent “girls,” I’m not seeing any combat action because all the girls are already being pursued by other “friendly” aircraft (male competitors).

Each “girl” I’ve seen has been a disappointment. Some are disappointing because you think they’re “girls”, but their really just decoys—females in disguise (deceptacons, if you will). From a distance they seem to be “girls”, but when you talk to them, you notice they either have no personality, or a full-on peach fuzz fu-man-choo (there are things girls can do to get rid of those, right?).

The rest of the “girls”—the ones who haven’t disqualified themselves by either their lack of charisma or their over-abundance of facial hair, are the ones that really get my blood boiling (and I don’t mean that in a hormonal way—goodness knows I wish I did). These “girls” are the ones that would make wonderful targets for a pursuant such as myself (an F-16 Fighting Falcon with all the highest technology and training available to a combat aviator), but for some reason or another they give themselves up to engage not a fighter jet, but that silly by-plane crop duster. Sure he’s got a nice paint job on his little propeller rig, but were you really so desperate for some combat that you are allowing yourself to dog fight with Orville Wright?!

Okay, aeronautical analogies aside, I’ve been very frustrated of late to see cute girls who I’d love to meet and find out just how nice, and fun, and funny they are, but each one of them is draping herself over this chump, or is scratching the back of that low-brow.

Isn’t there a girl out there with enough dignity and self worth to 1.) wax off her transparent mutton chops, and 2.) exercise enough self control and selectiveness to wait for a decent guy to come along? Every non-male I encounter is either unappealing to me, married, or already committed to some guy who is either enjoying his flavor of the week, or batting WAY out of his league.

Even when surrounded by attractive girls, I’m not finding any that I like, and it’s a very frustrating thing.

I recently read an article about a university professor’s book, which examines the gender ratios in China and the dangers adherent to the lack of balance in those ratios. “According to the study, about 97 percent of all unmarried people age 28 to 49 in China are male.”

This professor says that throughout Chinese history, the government has delt with this excess of single young adult males by sending them to war or expelling them. “In all cases, the goal of the government is to get rid of them, either by sending them away to distant regions or by giving their lives in a patriotic cause.”

“If they’re going to die, then they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population!”

Perhaps my dilemma would be lessened if there were just fewer males to compete with, but since I can’t control the population or expel my peers from the country’s boarders, I’ll have to find some other way to vent my frustrations.

“Oh, he's a ring-tailed roarer and tough old aligator. Oh, he's a hound-nosed bully and a real de-populator. Oh, what a fightin’ devil. He’ll spit right in your eye. He’s gonna live forever, born too mean to die.”

The article identifies young single men as “much more likely to be more violent than married men.” And the professor is quoted as saying, “Cross-culturally, an overwhelming percentage of violent crime is perpetrated by young, unmarried, low-status males.”

“You like osso buco, Charlie?”
“…”
“Hmm, it’s closed.”
“You know, Neil's a really good cook.”
“Yeah, and you should see him walk on water.”
“You don't like him very much, do you Dad?”
“Sure I do, I was just kidding around. But there's just something about him that makes me want to...”
“Lash out irrationally?”
“WHERE did you hear THAT?”
“From Neil. I learn a lot from him. He listens to me.”
“Yeah, and then he charges you for it.”

So, apparently, the result of silly “girls” making hasty decisions about whom they date will result in me losing my composure and slipping into a low-status life of crime and violence. Gee, thanks, ladies.

Finding the right girl seems so out of my control. Sometimes I think its best to try really hard—to go out and meet new girls and to spend a lot of time and money on dating. Other times I think its best to just do my own thing and just be myself and eventually the right girl will come along—but after four years of post mission “taking things seriously” life, I’ve found that there is nothing, big or small, that I can do to meet her. It’s completely out of my control.

**************************** Disclaimer ****************************

The remainder of this entry is a little sappy and pretty religious, so if reading it would either offend you or cause you to lose respect for me, you are invited to quit reading now.

******************************************************************

Jack Marshall, an LDS Institute of Religion instructor, recently spoke at BYU’s Education Week. I saw a few minutes of his address while flipping through the channels a few days ago. One thing he said struck me—I don’t have the direct quote, but his concept was essentially this: the more interest we take in and work we do for our relatives who have passed beyond this life, the more assistance we receive from them in the things we struggle with.

To understand what he’s saying, you’ve got to understand a bit of Mormon doctrine: much of what goes on inside those beautiful, yet closed-to-the-public Mormon temples you see, is work for the dead. Don’t start thinking we go around robbing graves and throwing holy water on the corpses to ensure their salvation! In the temple, I can be baptized in behalf of (or as proxy for) say, a great, great grandparent, who never had the chance to be baptized in this life.

Marshall’s point was that they are waiting eagerly for us to perform this work for them, a work which they are incapable of doing themselves (baptism being a corporal ordinance, meaning it can only take place on earth, by someone with a body), and that if we help them with things they can’t do for themselves, their assistance will be evident in those areas of our lives with which we struggle or stress over, yet that we are seemingly incapable of doing ourselves.

And you don’t have to be Mormon and go to the temple to qualify for this help. I believe that it’s enough if you just research and find out who your ancestors are. Do some family history work; try to accumulate a record of names that link an unbroken chain from you to your parents, to their parents, to theirs.

Being a temple attending Mormon, I feel like what this drives me to do is to not just show up to the temple and do the work for the names of people they have on file (people I have no relation to), but do my homework, find out which of my relatives are still waiting for this or that ordinance, and invest some interest, some time, and some work in someone who, from beyond the grave, has some vested interest in my future and well being.

Its been proven to me time after time, busted relationship after busted relationship, and fruitless encounter after fruitless encounter, that romantic success is way beyond my control, and that no measure of effort by me, my friends, or well-wishing living family members is ever directly related to any rendering of achievement in said field. But perhaps its not beyond the control of those angels (deceased family members) who know my name and could work their magic from behind the veil.

“SAINTS ALIVE! Dad, we thought you were dead!”
“I was, I came back to tell you something... you're an odd one, boy.”
“You came back to tell me I was odd?”

On my mission, my buddy Elder Puckett and I used to joke that every time you pass someone on the street, your deceased relatives and theirs would look down from heaven above and be simply beside themselves with frustration, because they had been working for years to arrange everything to set it up so you (the missionary), would encounter that stranger and teach him the gospel so he could eventually go to the temple and do the work for those very souls who had worked endlessly to bring the two of you together. Perhaps it has been several generations in the works, both families working to get you into the church and on a mission, just because they new that on May 19th, 1999 they could foresee that you and their relative would be walking down the same side of Pennwood Avenue. But in one brief moment of shyness, laziness, or carelessness, you let that stranger and all those generations of effort slip away.

That might be a little extreme, nevertheless I do believe that those who have gone before us still exist and are still looking out for, and working for our best potential.

What if we turn our focus to them and they turn theirs to us… then maybe that cloud nine we hope to reach with “the one” isn’t too high to reach after all.

“Once I get you up there where the air is rare a find, we’ll just glide starry eyed. Once I get you up there I’ll be holding you so near, you may hear angels cheer ‘cause we’re together.”

Restart button

Naps are a beautiful thing.

I was having a tough day at work today. Part of my job includes putting together PDF files, but the program that I use wasn’t working—it was holding everything up and stressing me out.

I spent about an hour trying to fix the problem. I’d try printing from other applications or re-mapping my printer set-up and nothing seemed to fix the problem.

“I'm about ready to give up on this hunk of junk!”
“You always say that.”
“I mean it, this time. I'll never get this boneheaded contraption to work.”
“Yes, you will. And you'll win first prize at the fair tomorrow.”
“Hmmmph!”
“...and become a world famous inventor!”

Then it dawned on me that my computer may not have restarted yesterday. They ask us to keep our computers on over night because that’s when a lot of automatic updating goes on. But a computer needs to reboot every day or else it just gets too worn out, so they ask that we restart it at the end of every day. Maybe I'd forgotten yesterday. So I tried restarting my computer—problem solved!

I take a late lunch. It was about 1:10 pm and I hadn’t eaten since 7 am. I was still a little stressed from the PDF problem earlier in the day, plus I had to cancel a market with a radio station in Philadelphia—the poor guy, his name is Neville and I’ve only been working with him for four months, but for some reason every schedule I buy from him I end up canceling, its nothing he does or even me, it’s the darn clients, but every time poor Neville earns a commission when I buy the schedule, then he loses it a week later when I cancel. I feel bad every time I cancel with someone, but when my four month relationship is nothing but cancel after cancel, it’s pretty stressful to have another cancellation order come up—all that, plus I was dying of hunger.

The company that does all our printing brought in some doughnuts, so I had one in an attempt to curb my hunger, but seeing as how its nothing but sugar (chocolate doughnut with chocolate frosting) all it did was drain even more of my energy. I was so burnt out that I felt like going home for lunch and never coming back.

“Those pack horses ‘r plum wore out and so ‘m I.”

After a quick lunch (accompanied by a short Xbox game and a few select scenes form Pirates of the Caribbean) I decided to spend the majority of my lunch break taking a nap. Conveniently, I live only 3/5 of a mile from work, so when I take naps on my lunch break, they’re real naps on my very own bed.

“Now, close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Why?”
“Oh, everybody has to sleep. Figaro goes to sleep and Cleo... and besides tomorrow you’ve got to go to school.”
“ Why?”
“Oh, to learn things and get smart.”
“Why?”
“Ahh… (yawn) because…”
“Oh.”

The nap totally replenished my energy and reset my mood.

Its amazing what a reset can do. It can salvage a pathetic performance in a video game, over come a scratch induced stall on a DVD, recalibrate your PDF creator, and re-ignite your tolerance for the rat race of work.

“I got to go home and take a nap.”
“It's 10:30 in the morning!”
“I'll tell you, I am wiped.”

About half way into my mission the president instated a mid-day siesta hour. I guess too many missionaries were complaining about being exhausted as an excuse for not producing the work related statistics expected of them.

Before the siesta-lunch program the Nevada Las Vegas West mission averaged right around 100 baptisms a month; after eight months of daily siestas, we were baptizing over 175 in a month.

What would it be like if our country adopted the siesta hour during our workday? Look at the countries that do: Spain, the Latin American countries… I think it’s the one criterion needed for a country to be upgraded from a third-world rating to second-world. Just imagine what it could do for a first-world country!

“So this Da Vinci sleep is working out?”
”Oh, I'm percolating, Jerry. I'm telling you, I have never felt so fertile. I'm mossy, Jerry. My brain is mossy.”

Swimming strokes

About half way across the lake, just over the deepest part, it was becoming more and more obvious that I wasn’t going to make it to the other side. My arms were tired, my legs were burning, and my lungs were exhausted, and I wasn’t even through with the first quarter of my swim. I started preparing emotionally for what lie ahead: either my life would end with a drowning, or (far more likely) I’d have to swallow my pride and accept that my sister was a better swimmer than I.

Well, the drowning was still in question, but the fact that I had been out swum was for certain. How could this be? Sure, Stacy was on the swim team in highschool, but I was team captain of both football and track for crying out loud! The way I remember it, I was the captain and she was “Heath’s sister”. Plus I’d been swimming laps three times a week for the past three months.

“You're not all-powerful, Ani.”
”Well, I should be.”
“One day, I will be. I will become the most powerful Jedi EVER.”

I was the one that proposed she and I head down to Nolte State Park and freestyle our way across Deep Lake, but she was the one who left me choking on her wake. It’s a pretty humbling position to be in: first I’m standing at the shore, brimming with confidence that she’ll have a hard time keeping up with me, next thing I’m 15 yards behind her swallowing my pride along with half the duck-poop filled lake. Its quite a drop to go from holding your head high to treading water and stretching your neck in an effort to keep your head above water.

“Do you yield?”
“I can't bloody swim!”
“Do you yield?”
“Yes!”
“Good. Then put your feet down.”
“Well, I’ll be buggered.”

Well, luckily, I made it across the lake and back without drowning, but my heart could feel the altitude sickness from the fall of one second having my head in the clouds and the next having my feet flat on the ground. Turns out, I’m not as immortal and she's not as imperfect as I had figured.

“The Force runs strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And... my sister has it.”

Well, I’m still too proud to accept that I can’t swim well: I’ve been working on my swimming strokes ever since that day, but I’ve learned that I’m not too proud to accept that my sister is way better than me (in a lot of things).

"Would it bother anyone if I worked on my cannon balls?"

I’ve been trying to tweak my stroke so I can swim for a long period of time without getting lightheaded or hyperventilated. I’ve figured out a lot of things on my own, and I’ve eavesdropped a lot on the swimming classes that are taught at the pool I go to, but I’ve realized that Stacy is a good source for tips and pointers.

And looking back on things, she’s been a good source for tips and pointers on a lot more than just swimming. She lived in Provo last year. We had a lot of fun going to dollar movies and tossing around the baseball—it was fun to have a friend that liked to do those things with me, but what meant more than having a friend who liked all the strange things I like (such as Christmas movies in the springtime, or grilled cheese with tomato soup—a must-have combo) was having someone to talk to when I was stressing about work, or school, or girls.

When I look at the huge difference in my relationship with Stacy from when we were kids to now, I no longer see a doughy-nosed, bloodhound cheeked kid who was an excellent testing ground for new teasing material, but a real friend with whom I share more interests, worries, perspectives, and dreams than most anybody I know.

It was hard to have her move home while I knew I’d be staying. Neither of us are the type to talk much about our feelings (none of my family is, really), but there were a few conversations and notes there toward the end that communicated how grateful we both were for having the other close.

"Thank you for being a friend, Travel down the road and back again, Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant And if you threw a party, Invited everyone you knew, You would see the biggest gift would be from me And the card attached would say Thank you for being a friend "

I love my sisters and I love that we’re becoming better friends the older we get.

Crossing your 't's and dotting your 'i's

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve been in a rut. Not a deep enough rut that its any kind of a Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde personality change, but enough of a rut that I’ve noticed that I’m not as light hearted about everything as I usually am and would prefer to be.

“You say you can't sleep. Heart break? Bad Dreams?”
“There is one dream where in my dream, I'm Spider-Man. But I'm loosing my powers. I'm climbing a wall but I keep falling.”
“Oh. So you're Spider-Man...”
“In my dream... Actually, it's not even my dream, it's a friend of mine's dream.”
“Oh. Somebody else's dream. What about this friend? Why does he climb these walls? What does he think of himself?”
“That's the problem, he doesn't know what to think.”
“Kind of makes you mad not to know who you are? Your soul disappears, nothing is bad as uncertainty. Listen, maybe you're not supposed to be Spider-Man climbing those walls? That's why you keep falling. You'll always have a choice Peter.”
“…I have a choice.”

Well, last week I had an experience that snapped me out of it a little. I’ve always heard that the temple is a good place to go if you need help with something that you and others can’t help you with. So I went, and I was kind of feeling the same way about being at the temple as I’ve felt about a lot of things lately—very ho-hum.

“... Frankly, I think this place is a bit boring. I mean, it's all WHITE! Why doesn't this Superman guy put up some nice posters here... Maybe some bullfighting stuff, or a pool table...!”

In the temple ordinances are preformed—like baptism, and like baptism, all the ordinances have prescribed ways that they are to be preformed. I was mostly just going through the motions, but there’s no more inapt place for a Devil-may-care attitude, than in the temple. As I was going through the motions, I guess it was obvious to the assistant officiator, because he walked up behind me, and with out a word, he gently nudged me into a more correct position.

His gesture wasn’t big, but to me it was bold. All he did was move me about an inch, but to me it was his way of saying, “Son, this is important, so let’s do it right.” And that little lesson opened my eyes up to everything else that had been dragging me down. It was because I was getting lazy in how I did things.

Looking back on it, now I can see that at my appartment, I wasn’t making my bed as often, I didn’t take out the garbage as often. At work I didn’t put as much effort into being friendly to the people I worked with, I was just focused on getting the job done and nothing else. With people I talked to, I was more interested in how the conversation would end than in what the conversation was about.

There were so many of the little things that are determinedly Heath things, or the Heath way to do things. Old roommates of mine would tell you that Heath always folds and his clothes and he always clears his table, but even things like that were becoming optional instead of ingrained.

I guess what I learned was that the moment you stop caring, is the moment things stop mattering to you. What I mean by that is that if you pay attention to crossing your T’s, you’ll inherently check the word for spelling, but when you stop dotting your I’s, some how even the words without I’s in them start slipping past you loaded with misspellings.

"You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power..."

So, now I’m paying more attention to the cleanliness of my apartment and the pleasantness with which I answer the phone at work, and I’m noticing that life seems more alive. When my attitude is ho-hum, the world around me seems to match suit. But when I stop cutting corners and start taking pride in doing the little things, those dull things in life suddenly appear vibrant.

"We know you are coming back, when life reentered our village."

"For the love of the game"

Last night my pal Travis and I went to a Salt Lake Stingers game. The Stingers are the local AAA farm team for baseball’s Anaheim Angels. Attending these games isn’t exactly a tradition for us, but we’ve been to five or six games this season.

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

I love baseball. I love it like I love this country, to me, you just couldn’t have one without the other. But the more I watch baseball, the more I realize that I don’t love just any baseball, I love MY baseball. I love watching my team.

“I try to learn your ways, understand your obsessions. But this baseball, it's so bleedin' boring, isn't it?”

Last night’s game started at seven o’clock and didn’t get over til after ten. There were over 20 runs scored, but it wasn’t even exciting for me. I didn’t know the players, I didn’t care who one, and I didn’t even pay attention to pitch counts or outs per inning. In fact, I was so unentertained by the game, that I had more fun laughing about the mismatched couple of the skinny guy and the fat girl sitting out beyond the leftfield wall (Travis had me rolling though, when he called the guy Jack Spratt, because it was obvious that he “could eat no fat; his wife could eat no lean”).

Sitting there, I was wondering if I’ve lost my love for the game. I mean, even the Mariners are sucking these days. Was I just a baseball band wagon jumper during their days of plenty?

“Man, this is baseball. You gotta stop thinking. Just have fun.”

There’s no way. I really do love this game. I love walking into a park just before a game, that moment when I should be finding my seat but instead I’m mesmerized by the harmony of the red of the dirt and the green of the grass. The feeling that you’ll pay or do whatever it takes to enjoy a mustard covered hot dog from your seat and the perpetual hope that the next foul ball will find its way into your glove.

“I'd wake up at night with the smell of the ball park in my nose, the cool of the grass on my feet: The thrill of the grass… It was the game... The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face? …It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!”

That was the last home stand of the season for the Stingers. And now, the baseball season gives way to fall football. As we sat in the bleachers last night, and the sunlight surrendered to the voltage of the over head flood lamps I could I got the same chill down my spine that I would at those first few games of the season on French Field. The sun didn’t go down until right around half time, and that’s when the chill of the wind crept in. There, under the “friday night lights, I lived out my dreams, covered in my own sweat, sprinkles of my teammates’ blood, and splatters of snot bubbles from the running back my defense and I just devoured.

“Do you fear the force of the wind, the slash of the rain? Go face them and fight them. Be savage again.”

A change in seasons isn’t only the falling of leaves and the frosting of air; it’s the shifting of passions from the beauty of baseball to the brawn of the gridiron. I’m excited to watch, I’m excited to play. I’m glad there is change, I’m glad there is progress. I’m glad we’re given memories so we can relive the past and I’m glad we have freedom to make the most of the future.

Sports aren’t about scoreboards and stats, they’re about life and about friends. Maybe what I love best about these games isn’t the foulposts and goalposts or the stadium organs and marching bands, its the friends that I meet and the times that we share. And to those guys who I played with, just know that no matter where life takes us, we’ll always be a band of brothers and that our bond will never break because we’ve always got the change of the seasons to remind us of it.

“Its great to be alive. ITS GREAT TO BE A CONK!”

Double Eagle

In the United Kingdom they call it an albatross. It’s a golf term for finishing a hole 3 under par. Yesterday I went golfing with some co-workers, and it all happened on hole number seven.

“The only British idiom I know is that ‘fag’ means ‘cigarette.’”

Those jerk golf coarse grounds keepers were running the sprinklers one hole ahead of us all afternoon, so by the time we got there, if we were lucky enough that the sprinklers turned off before we teed off, we still had to put up with the grass being soaked. When we got to the tee on hole seven, the sprinklers were still going. Looking down the fairway, I couldn’t see anything but rainbow spectrums from the afternoon sun refracting off the sprinkler spray. I couldn’t even see the fairway, I could only see rooster tails of water from the tee to the horizon, and there was a little green flag that was “so gallantly streaming” just above the mist.

One of the guys I work with has the uncanny ability to gripe about anything and everything, so you can imagine what a bad day of golf coupled with the inconvenience of the sprinklers would do for his temper. He was whining and cussing from the first minute he noticed the sprinklers, and when we got to the tee he refused to tee off. Instead he wanted to walk into the club house and demand a refund.

“No—thank you, Lisa. For teaching kids everywhere a valuable lesson: If things don't go your way, just keep complaining until your dreams come true.”

I hate whiners and I hate complaining to the establishment, so out of spite for his anger, I just teed up and swung away.

The swing didn’t feel very true, and with the low afternoon sun in my eyes and the illuminated sprinkler spurts obstructing my view, I had no idea where my tee shot landed.

A few seconds after I stepped off the tee, the sprinklers stopped and the other guys shot, then we all went out in search of our balls.

The ground was wet and glistening so it was hard to see where a shiny wet golf ball would be. I wandered all over the fairway looking for my ball and I never saw anything—I even meandered into the neighboring fairways, because you never know where my slices could end up.

All the other guys found their balls and took their second shots. It wasn’t until Walt’s second shot landed him on the green that we all noticed the second shiny ball sitting there next to his. My tee shot had gone straight and far and sat itself down 15 feet from the hole!

This hole was a par five, which meant, if I sunk this putt I’d be enjoying my first ever double eagle (or albatross, for our British audience). I rarely hit for par, so anything under par is the sort of thing I don’t even allow myself to dream of, and this was a potential two under par—it was too good to be true.

“Golf requires concentration and focus.”

“Golf requires goofy pants and a fat @ss. You should talk to my neighbor the accountant. Probably a great golfer. Huge @ss.”

Now, a 15 foot putt is by no means a gimmie. It’s doable, but not at all easy. I really wanted that double eagle—especially because all day at work, Andrew had been trash talking about how badly he was going to beat me (he even tried to talk me into betting $20 a hole, but I turned him down because I couldn’t afford to lose that much if he beat me, and I knew he wouldn’t have the integrity to pay me if I beat him), and at this point, I was already beating him very badly, but a double eagle would just be another nail in the coffin.

All day long I had been coming up short on my putts, so I factored that in to how much umph would be needed for a 15 footer to drop. Only, I in all my factoring and figuring, I failed to notice that there was a slight down-hill slope between me and the cup, so when I shot, all that extra umph took the ball past the hole and off the green.

“YOU BLEW IT!”

I’d blown it! No double eagle. Probably not even an eagle. At best I’d need one shot to get back on the green and another to get in the hole, and that would put me right at par. But no, it took me one shot to get back on and two shots to get in the hole, leaving me with a mediocre bogey and a damaged ego.

I shot an eagle on the next hole and Andrew shot a triple bogey (if you can even still call it that—I don’t think they give names to scores that far from par), so I did get my chance to prove that he sucks and I don’t, but the blown double eagle got me thinking: how many times do I look a great opportunity in the face, and miss the opportunity because I do too much thinking?

Is a decision I make today going to alter my life so drastically that I miss an opportunity tomorrow? Am I not married because I’ve thought too much during the situations that may have led me to marriage? Do I not have a better job because I’ve been too careful about what a different job might impose on me? I guess those scenarios are a possibility, but I doubt I’ve blown anything that could possibly be a better situation than the one I’m currently in.

Some decisions don’t matter much—like whether I have egg or PB and J in my sandwich for lunch—and the ones that do mater a lot—who I marry, where I work, where I live—those are the ones I make based either on fundamentals in which I firmly believe, or on a deeper prompting, spiritual or otherwise.

I've been buying Brawny paper towels since I moved into this appartment, and just yesterday I noticed that they have written on them the words, “always follow your heart.” Now, I’m not sure if it’s due to my religious upbringing or to all the Disney fairytales I was exposed to as a kid, but confidently believe in following your heart. And I believe the way to do so is to follow your feelings, and for those times when your feelings don’t make sense to you, you do your best to make up your mind about what you want to do, then (and most importantly) you ask God if it’s the right thing to do.

It’s been my experience that when you invite God to participate in your important decisions, he always directs you in the path that your heart wanted you to follow, but that your head sometimes tries to think itself away from.

Looking back on the big decisions that I’ve made, I don’t regret any of them. I’m confident and comfortable with not being married to her, or not working for him because when it came down to making those important decisions, I let my heart and my God help me make the decision, and some how or another, those two always come up with exactly what I need.

“What's all this boo-hooin' going on here?”

“Nothing, Bernard. I'm just saying good-bye.”

“What good-bye? Charlie, you've still got the glass ball I gave you, right?"

“Yeah.”

“Well, all you've got to do is shake it up whenever you want to see your dad. He can come visit you anytime, day or night.”

“Really?”

“Hey, have I ever steered you wrong?”