Close Encounters with an Old Friend

Summer days before your first year of teaching can be long and boring, but can also go rather quickly if you're as horrible at time management as I am. Typically, I don't mind doing the same things over and over-- and my chosen line of work is going to have plenty of repetition. However, I do enjoy a good random change to the monotony every now and again.

About a week or two ago I got up one morning to set up the booth for Laugh Out Loud's upcoming improv show. I didn't mind setting up since I certainly had the time and needed a reason to wake up anyways. I didn't stay to pass out fliers that day though since at the time I was feeling pretty gross for having not showered yet and one of my roommates wanted me to meet him to get some lunch before he had class. On the way back, as I was crossing the section between the Library and the JFSB I saw a girl talking on her phone who (at least from that point of view) looked just like my childhood friend who used to live across the street from me.

I was a little bit confused as to why she would be on BYU campus, if memory served me she had grown up Jewish (which wouldn't keep her from going to BYU if she really wanted to) and was most likely as disinterested in attending a religious university as every other kid in my hometown. Not to mention she's a year older than I am and would have surely graduated by now. Regardless of the confusion, I did what any normal person would do in the situation, and walked right past her and tried to see if it was actually my friend while looking back as walking in the opposite direction.

Suddenly I was overcome by the feeling that I was being stupid and so I turned around to go fix this silliness I had gotten myself into. I hid and waited around in the plaza at the JFSB, spying on this girl on her phone, trying to remember if this was actually my friend or not. I soon started feeling pretty gross on the inside for creeping on her for so long (and gross on the outside for not having showered that day yet), so I told myself that I'd talk to her if she got off her phone in the next few minutes.

Sure enough, she got off her phone, so I manned up and walked towards her. Before I could even figure out what to say, she looked straight at me and smiled as if I had made her the happiest girl on earth (and I why wouldn't I? I am pretty awesome).

"Hi Scott!"

I wasn't quite ready for this reaction at all, and so I returned her greeting by freezing right in my tracks, mid step, one arm as obnoxiously in front of my body as the other was behind it, and stared. I am 80% confident that she was laughing at me on the inside and 100% confident that I looked like a tool. At least I was smiling back.

I then started to play the stupid game I always play where I pretend not to know someone as to not look creepy (even though I was convinced that this was my childhood friend).

"Uhh, uhhh.. Elena, right?"

She laughed, and shook her head, saying no as if I was just being silly. By then I had realized that I had no idea who this girl was but had somehow met her and she seemed to know me at least fairly well. This was even more bothersome to me, since I have a pretty good memory with people, especially when these people are cute girls who have long brown curly hair and are adorably shorter that I am.

"Well, I'm going this way," she said, pointing in a weird northeast direction that few students actually live at. It felt like she was implying that I walk with her, and I wanted to figure out how the heck I knew this girl, or at the very least, how she knew me.

She walked quickly, and so keeping up was pretty hard. She got on her phone again, looking quite focused as she walked and waited for the other person to answer. Then it hit me that we were already inside the Wilk and halfway down the stairs in the back towards the parking lot. She stopped and left a message on whoever's answering machine, mentioning her name in the message. It sounded like she said "Jenessa," or something close like that, though I definitely only knew one Jenessa and it definitely was not this girl. At least now I knew it started with a J.

We kept walking, she was fast and a few feet ahead, not paying heed to any of my questions. I had no idea where we were going, but she was cute and knew my name, so I didn't really care. She seemed to know every shortcut in the book. She cut through lawns and bushes, through alleys between campus buildings that I'd never been to, and she even squeezed herself through the bars of one of those fences-- you know, the kind that everyone with a childhood pretends are jail bars. I found myself cutting, stomping, and squeezing too, though that last fence was too small for me to fit through, even with a missing bar, so I stepped over it. I don't know why she didn't just step over it too.

At this point I was getting pretty frustrated with her, as she was always several steps ahead of me and wouldn't answer any of my questions, at least any that I asked when I wasn't focusing on where she was going or getting through her crazy obstacle course of shortcuts. Eventually, we ended up at this playground that looked exactly like the playground at the elementary school that I went to-- though not the awesome wood playground I had, the stupid plastic one they replaced it with. It was weird, it was an exact replica, complete with a soccer field to the left and a mini forest behind it, and an old, worn-out wood fence separating the playground from someone's backyard. This fence however wasn't as decrepit or covered in ivy as the one at home.

It was only after I had gotten this far that it hit me that she could have been trying to lose me this whole time. Fed up and annoyed with our little adventure I called out as she was walking,

"You know, if you just wanted to get rid of me, you could have just asked!"

She was about ten feet in front of me, and turned around that instant. She didn't look at me, but was looking with her eyes and her head at the air above me, as if something was there. At the moment I didn't think about how weird it was, because as she was staring over my head I was fixated on her eyes- they didn't look right. They were a whitish-yellow color instead of their normal brown.

The thought came to me that maybe she was blind and we were just following her memorized course home. That may account for all the weird shortcuts, maybe it felt safer to her and she wouldn't risk running into people or walking into traffic. My theory started to make sense, at least a little, until I remember that she recognized me by looking right at me. Even though unshowered Scott probably smells similar to childhood Scott, it probably wouldn't be enough for a blind person to recognize.

After a few seconds, she snapped out of her little trance and walked up to me. She giggled and looked at me, smiling as if to say thanks for putting up with her shenanigans. Her eyes were back to normal, so I dismissed my silly thoughts and walked with her behind the playground to the fence. I figured she either lived in the house behind the school, or she was just going to hop the fence and use the yard as a shortcut to wherever she was taking me.

She stood with her back to me, concentrating at the fence. I figured as long as she was still for a moment, I could gather at least some minimal information about who she was and how she knew me.

"Sooo, um, your name... is..."

"Jessica."

"Right, Jessica," I said. (And by right, I really meant, "You aren't any Jessica I know, who the heck are you.") "And uh, how do we know each other again? I don't... I don't really recall meeting you."

Jessica looked at me again and smiled, "Oh, that's not really important."

Her statement would have been a lot more confusing to me had I not witnessed something even stranger after she had said it. After talking, she looked right back at the fence and walked right into it. Right through the fence. She stood there on the other side in the yard, with her back still facing me.

"Wait, I said.. not important? WAIT, did you just walk through that fence?"

The fence was definitely solid, it didn't have any holes to squeeze through or under, but it wasn't tall enough to keep an adult from climbing over. She definitely made it past the fence, though I didn't see her climb. Were my eyes just playing tricks on me... was I just tired or something?

Before I could figure out what had just happened, Jessica giggled again. I kept staring at her from over the fence, she did not look back at me as she slowly walked towards the house. As she walked, she slowly levitated up into the air. Shocked, I kept staring. She floated forward and up, until she was nearly at the roof of the house. At that point she stopped moving, and faded like a bad movie effect from the 80's until she disappeared.

Needless to say, it was a very confusing morning. I didn't even get her number.









You're probably wondering what the crap you just read. It's a story I wrote based on a dream that I had this morning. The dream was confusing and weird, but since it had my focus from the moment it started, I figured it would make a good story. It's one of the more involved dreams I've ever had. So uh, hope you had fun :D

spiders of the curse

I remember how big of a deal it was when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64. The first Zelda in 3D, a great experience, all that goodness. There were these monsters called Skulltulas, basically big ol spiders with skull heads or something like that. Weird dudes. So while you're adventuring in the first dungeon, you kill these even weirder looking skulltulas that are gold in color. When you kill one, it drops off a little gold token, which you collect. Um, cool? Obviously, we've just discovered a new side quest!

Well... after stomping the life out of a bunch of these gold spiders and collecting their tokens, you finally figure out what the deal is. You get to the Kakariko village and walk into yet another unsuspecting house. You figure that there's townsfolk there to tell you boring or possibly useful information, or maybe some pottery to smash. However, inside you just see a dark, dusty, empty old house. After taking a few steps, you realize you aren't alone, when from the ceiling a gigantic, nasty skulltula pops down.. AND.. tries.. talking to you?

Your instinct is to fight it, which you do, of course, and after managing to hurt it, it lets our a horrifying scream of pain. Then it hits you- this skulltula has part of a human face on it.. and a human arm. GROSS!

It turns out that this guy and his family were cursed, cursed to live as skulltulas until all the spiders of the curse (in other words, gold skulltulas) were destroyed. Thus started a trend in Legend of Zelda Games of collecting magical items in order to turn people back into people (seriously, it's in like every game after this one)

um... hey.. sorry about uh, well, trying to kill you.

So, I figure that because of these guys.. uh.. condition, it's probably pretty hard for them to get out of the house and talk to people. I'd guess that most people just freak out when they see them. I mean, only Link is nice enough to come over and visit them. They probably really appreciate that, even if he hasn't killed enough spiders of the curse.



The thing is, there's some people who, for whatever reasons, really struggle with getting out of the house and talking to people. Or making new friends. Or just being social in general. And we, in our little happy valley/church culture tend to kind of treat them like... sinners. Or like they're a cursed spider guy, or that there's just totally something wrong with them.

Cause obviously, they just need to "be more happy" and if I tell them that then it'll fix it all. Or if they just "work really hard" then they'll be back to normal (by the way normal is just like me and the way I see things).

I'm not the most anti-social, hating of people guy out there, but I won't pretend that it's easy for me either. I have a hard time talking to people, and I misuse sarcasm all the time (though I also use it well a good deal too :P). But really, as much as I "work at" being nice to people, being positive, talking to and meeting new people, it's all still pretty hard. I don't think it's really every gotten any easier, I've just seen what good things can come of it.

But it's still a very quick inclination in all of us to judge the guy who isn't social as some kind of terrible loser or even a sinner. Or to treat the person who isn't going to ward activities (which for someone with social anxiety can be incredibly overwhelming) like they're inactive or breaking covenants or something. That's not how it is. You wouldn't go up to a person with autism or Down syndrome and tell him that if he was just a little bit more faithful, or read his scriptures more, or "tried harder" that his disability would go away. But that's the kind of stuff we tell to people with depression or social anxiety all the freaking time.. it really doesn't work that way.


And I know there's people who are just plain anti social. They don't want to be around people, they aren't concerned with others, they really should work at being better to the people around them. But most people want to have friends, want to care about people, and want to help others.. but it's hard for them to beat their fears or weaknesses.


The great thing is that there are so many people who are just doing it right. There are many, many nice guys and nice girls who don't have trouble being social. They don't do it to be popular or to be the big fish or what have you, they do it cause they want to be good and care about people. My current ward is very good at this; I've felt that most (if not all) of the people actually care for each other and are interested in making other people feel happy. When people act like that, then it is much more motivating to be social than out of some sense of duty or to feel like you're "doing your part."

I guess that's when it gets easier- when you know that people care and that you can put yourself out there without feeling like a wacky skeleton-spider-guy.

HEY! LISTEN!!!

just about everyone who read the title already knows what i am referencing. very few people who have played video games don't recognize the annoying, nagging, anger-inducing voice of Navi, a not-so-useful, powerless, "guardian" fairy whom you're cursed to have following you throughout the duration of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." the only real useful thing that navi does is z-target, which nintendo continued on after the n64 days but didn't necessitate  the use of an annoying fairy to do so. navi did, however start the trend of annoying companions, following Link around while hiding in his hat, sword, or shadow and prodding you to continue with the main quest, cause the game doesn't think you're smart enough to do so. sheesh, navi, where the heck were you in zelda II? oh yeah, you weren't needed then, and you aren't needed now!


it doesn't matter what you're doing. running along hyrule, hunting those big poes, and...

HEY!!

navi's little annoying "press C up now" button flashes. you ignore it, CAUSE YOU GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW

you're dashing to get the eyeball frog to the scientist, to make eyedrops for biggoron aaaannnndddd...

HEY!!!!

and you're like, "STOP IT NAVI, I REALLY WANT THAT SWORD!"

eventually, you can't take the nagging anymore. the flashing 'navi... navi... navi... navi...' gets to you and well you press the dang button to see what she has to say. and surprise, surprise...

doesn't that cloud over Death Mountain look weird to you?

she doesn't tell you anything that you didn't already know. heck, half the time, you're on your way to doing whatever she's nagging you to do in the first place!

thanks, navi. thanks for nothing. yeah, i already knew that the water temple was up next. yeah, it was already obvious that the monsters weak point is its giant red eye. 

the thing is, regardless of being annoying, at least navi is pretty much always right. every once in a while i got lost and navi helped me figure out what i was supposed to be doing. and by that i mean, the one time i forgot seeing zelda throw the ocarina in the moat and not knowing what to do next. 

well, the other day i got to thinking-- i hope i listen to the Spirit a lot more than to navi. yeah, i know, paralleling video games to life is kind of silly... and awesome, but anyways, instead of pretty much sort of knowing what i should be doing, the Spirit is always right and always knows better than i do. i can be off running on my own little side quest but if i am listening, then i'll be put in a better direction. 

of course, i don't think the Spirit is annoying or nagging. it's quiet, but it won't force it's way into your thinking. you gotta be waiting, listening, ever ready to press C up and listen. and that brings way better blessings than you could pick up in a side quest

must be stopped.

there is a malicious evil that is seeking to destroy each of us. it lurks in our phones, our photos, our facebooks, twitters, the internet, but mostly just on facebook. it saps our intelligence, demands constant attention, but mostly--

it just annoys the ever-loving crap out of me.

yes, hashtag, i'm talking about you. you're pretentious, you're annoying, and you contribute absolutely nothing to whatever status or photo you're riding the coattails of. 

i mean, i think there was a time where they kind of had a purpose. i think. i remember sometime last year they started appearing everywhere at the end of statuses, and at first i thought they were like, some kind of thing you can put into twitter to get more information. (i know nothing about and care even less about twitter, so i have no idea how accurate my assumption was). i thought this cause i most often saw hashtags at the end of political/social statements, you know like, "status about how the economy sucks #occupywhatever" or "status about how my presidential candidate can beat yours in a pokemon battle #marackrobomney2013"

but if that was even the original intent, all hashtags do now is, oh, state the exact same thing you already said in an annoying and difficult to read way, or really just add nothing to whatever was just said. very often i see a status or photo that's like--

"Hey guys! I just totally posted something on Facebook!

#postedsomethingonfacebook #totallyposted #heyguysitsfacebook #lolbffs #facebookposts #bestdayever #yolo #hashtag #hashtag #toomanyhashtags #didimentioniposted #hashtag"

no really, this isn't too far off from what i see. my favorite is when people say #toomanyhashtags (it's a common one i've seen). but then they keep adding more stupid hashtags.

whatever, maybe i'm just a loser who never saw the appeal, or maybe if i want to tell someone how i'm feeling or what i'm thinking about, i'll just tell them instead of barrage the internet with a bunch of one-word sentences that are seriously ineffective at actually communicating what i want to say.

eh screw it, i should just text the person sitting across from me to get my messages across. 

just for fun

so at school today our teacher was having the students write some tongue twisters and well the other paras and i thought we'd do some too.. so i wrote these guys. have fun

the dog

the bog had a log that was full of eggnog and the dog in the fog jumped over the log and fell through the smog and into the bog

now the doggy is soggy because it was smoggy; he fell through the foggy right over the loggy

(the dog hogs eggnog every night in the fog as he sits on the log in the bog through the smog)

the letter u

unusual unicorns use unified uvulas to undermine urchins and undo umbrellas- under Umberto the unicorns unite and unmake all urchins with usual uses.

hee hee

oblivious girls at the octopus orchid omit all compliments from Oliver Optimist while over ornery orangutans' oranges and opening olives on Oliver's waffles.

perhaps my personal favorite

Remember to hustle your muscles when caught in a tussle with Russel.

be a MAN

i've been growing up... sort of. i mean i GUESS finishing college and getting a teaching license is pretty cool... ok, so i'm actually really happy about that. life can be pretty fun and pretty dang nice.

but now that i've (at least legally) been an adult for a while, i still keep wondering what it really means to be a grown up. you know, to be a MAN.

i mean, lets think about what it takes.. the speed of a coursing river? the force of a great typhoon? the strength of a raging fire? or perhaps the mystery and secrecy kept on the dark side of the moon..



well, to be honest, i don't really know what it takes. i try to think of some people i've looked up to-- seminary teachers, young men leaders, my student teaching mentor, my radical brothers and brother in law...




but of course it's my dad who takes the cake, hands down.

today's my dad's 65th birthday. well, it's SUPPOSED to be his 65th birthday. i guess i can't really legitimately say that he's 65 and i won't ever get to tease him for being old, but whatever.

i've never really felt like really ever needed another example beside him of manhood. for real. i guess he had a lot of practice before i was born, cause he's always been manly ever since i knew him.

and i'm not talking about manly like being RIPPED WITH AWESOME MUSCLES AND PECTORALS TO THE MAX or like manly like JUMPING OVER MOTORCYCLES ON A MOTORCYCLE WHILE SHOOTING STUFF or any of that junk (though dad was pretty good at being a buff guy).

i always think of him as like.. knowing how to do the important manly stuff. like never making it a question whether or not he loved my mom. or me. or my sister and brothers. he just acted in a way that the thought of him not loving his family could never even enter my mind. ever.

my earliest memory ever is when i had apparently been to a family's house in my ward for my parent's date night or something to that effect. i don't remember why i was there. i also don't remember falling asleep there, but i must have, cause the memory is of my being at that house, and then being in my crib with my dad asking my whether i wanted milk or orange juice to drink.

when i was a little kid i would usually wake up before everyone else in the house. i would wait in bed until i heard my dad get up, then run into the kitchen. he'd ask me what cereal i wanted and then would get if for me. he probably taught me how to pour cereal. i mean, even if he never actually taught taught me, i learned cause i watched him. silly little thing, right? whatever-- it's kept me from being hungry thousands of times

i remember exactly what i did the night before my parents found out something was wrong. i remember cause that kind of stuff just gets scorched into your memory whether you like it or not. i was in 8th grade and i had my two best friends over for the night. i could have been a long weekend or something, i don't remember. but my dad had us come with him to a hockey game. it was roller hockey and my older brother was playing. after the game my dad took us to get fast food.

and holy crap i'm so grateful he did that. but that's just how it was- it was important to Dad that he could be with his sons, so he takes me to support my brother doing something that he really loves.


here's some pictures.. i don't really have as many as i would like though

my dad and his older sister when he was a TOTALLY ADORABLE baby! my aunt just emailed this to us,  and i'm happy that she did

my sister (she's the oldest) when she was little and my dad when he was a young studmuffin (as opposed to a middle-aged studmuffin)

i overuse this picture, but i don't really care. it's my best picture with me and my dad, who  pretty much looks the same as i've ever known him to

someday i'll be a man. like a for real man, who cares about other people and helps and loves them like my dad. if i can be just a fraction like him then that's a really dang good life.

no sinking lures allowed

a few years back, right before i left home to come to BYU, i was talking at church with one of my seminary teachers who has inquired about my less than favorable dating circumstances. his advice was this:

well, there's a LOT of girls at BYU.. its time for you to go fishing!

...


huh.

just this month, while my roommate was on his flight from houston to provo, he sat by a man who also happened to be LDS. upon finding this out, the first thing this man asks my roommate was this:

so then, how's the wife hunt going?

...


huh.



now i don't know a whole lot about hunting or fishing, but i'm gonna spell out what i can figure anyways.

this may or may not be where my sources come from

i'll start with hunting:

from what i can understand, the hunter first must seclude himself within the bushes, trees, or otherwise natural things in the environment to avoid detection. the hunter wears camouflage to further his or her stealth. he then either waits for or runs after the prey. often, a hunter will wait by a river or stream, hoping to find an animal looking for a drink. the hunter then shoots and fatally wounds said animal. cool. great job, man.

the hunter takes the animal and gets it skinned to either sell the fur, keep it as a rug, or do whatever with it. he may take the meat for some tasty snacks later on. or he might just have some weirdo cut off the head so he can hand it on his wall. whatever he wants, really

and that is what i understand about hunting.


now on to fishing:

a fisher will put some bait on a hook and casts it out into the water. he waits for the fish to bite the bait, as fish are a little silly and don't usually notice the hook or understand that it's a threat. upon biting, the fisher then yanks the rod so that it pulls the hook through the fish's mouth, and reel the fish in. often, the fish is fighting for its dang life. once forced out of the water, the fish will pretty much suffocate and die. the fisher will then gut the fish, cut of its skin, and eat it, or have it plastered so he can hang it on his wall for all his smelly old man friends to see. that, or he'll make the fish sing cheesy songs to people who walk by. whatever he wants, really






now, thinking about what we do when hunting or fishing, it actually kind of scares me when we think about dating as "going fishing" or "hunting for the one." i mean, sometimes i feel like i have to trick a girl into spending time with me and then she's fighting me the whole time, trying to go back to her natural habitat.. but i don't really think that's how you develop a mutually dependent relationship. and i won't pretend like i know anything about dating.. but i don't think its really about stealth, deception, force, or fatal wounding.. nor do i think that the end goal is to eat the other person or show her off to all your friends.


and i get it- marriage is important. so important, in fact that its a covenant that we make with God in the temple. when you think about it that way, its kind of a big deal

unfortunately in our wonderful little happy valley i think we treat it way more like a social status or a really cool pokemon card (or whatever you kids are into these days). it's like we think more of people who are dating or married- they somehow have more value or they're more important.

i really blame our silly hunting/fishing mentality. we can all love the guy who shot the biggest dear or caught the heaviest fish.. but that aint really what it's about, now is it?

and i know that it's a metaphor. i just think its a really crappy one. hunting is all about what the HUNTER wants. fishing is all about what the FISHER wants. if dating was all about what the "HUNTER" wants then well.. that's just sad.



then again, what the heck do i know? probably nothing.. i don't have any dead fish or deer heads hanging on my wall  O.o