Sunday Stream of Semi-Consciousness

Steve Gets Married

2007-11-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that strong emotions, if pent-up, will inevitably leak out in unexpected ways. Case in point: Grandmother has intense desire to shower her grandchildren with affection, but the 1,800 miles separating them retards her attempts to do so. The result? Strange hymns sung in Latin on her grandchildren’s answering machine. Grandmothers are a ready example of love leaking out in odd ways. Some senior women even begin projecting this love on their pets. Reservoirs of affection demanding expression are the only explanation for the product viability of a thing like the “Pampered Pouch,” a dog clothing knitting set. The package comes complete with yarn and patterns for such classics as the “sassy snuggle suit,” the “oh so swanky sweater,” and “the royal cape.”

Please don’t misunderstand, I am not attempting to label hours of time invested in making puppy clothing insane, compulsive, or obsessive. I am merely trying to highlight an element of human behavior. Our actions are guided by incentives, and often these motivating forces are emotions such as love, hate, sorrow, and humor. No one is exempt, it happens all the time. Parents come home from work angry and frustrated. Unless the anger is properly identified and diffused, it leaks out in deconstructive ways: biting remarks, a hot temper, or even physical abuse.

When I was a missionary . . . um . . . I mean I have this friend who was a missionary, and he denied himself the electronic pleasures of Nintendo and X-box for two years. I believe this repressed energy was the reason he started speed cubing, and playing marshmallow-blowgun tag with is companions until two in the morning.

My first . . . uh . . . I mean my friend’s first mission companion is a passionate man. That is one of Steve’s strengths. He was one of the most dedicated missionaries my friend ever served with. His work ethic and excitement made six months of fruitless proselytizing in the Western Mojave Desert bearable and in some ways, even enjoyable.

Most missionaries at least think about their future wives, but Steve had ALOT of love saved up for his future spouse. Missionary service required that he repress those energies and so they leaked out in unconventional ways. He wasn’t apostate or anything, but he was definitely more eager than most to have a sweetheart “wait for him.”

Anyway, there was this international student named Mandy from Steve’s BYU freshman ward. They had dated a little, and she had even spent the holidays at his house or something, so for a missionary in search of a girl-on-hold, there was reason to believe this might be worth pursuing. The crisis happened before my friend was ever companions with Steve (although even after they were companions Steve sometimes dedicated songs to Mandy’s memory). In any event, here is the gist of Steve’s leaking passion for marriage:

Valentine’s Day was fast approaching and Steve had written Mandy a letter asking her to be his valentine. Confident of her reply, he had used much of his monthly missionary budget to purchase enough Valentine’s Day goodies to fill a small box. You know, plastic hearts, chocolate, small stuffed animals that sing when you squeeze them, that kind of junk. After he has purchased said items, but before he had sent the box-o-love, he gets a letter from Mandy informing him that she would rather be his "friend" instead of his Valentine. Steve is understandably upset. So, he and his missionary roommates stuff all the cute, little knick-knacks for darling Mandy in a BBQ grill, douse it in gasoline, and roast the crap into a black, toxic ball of smoke.

Like I said before, I am not trying to label this kind of behavior as obsessive or compulsive. We all have things we feel strongly about and if that emotional energy isn’t allowed to be released in constructive ways, it comes out in less conventional ways that may appear sort of nutty. The variation from person to person is not if they feel strongly about something, just what it is that they are passionate about. That is why some missionaries will find creative ways to shoot each other in the dark and others will have “Dear John,” bonfires.

I tell you about Steve’s pyro-missionary love to highlight the fact that he has always felt very strongly about being a husband. I never thought him desperate or anything, but I knew that whoever was lucky enough to be his wife should be ready to be dotted over, and cared for like no one else in the world. In that sense Steve is one of the most genuine romantics I’ve ever met.

Well, last week Steve got married. After the sealing, we had a lunch at Tucanos (I could eat the roasted pineapple and beef tender loin all day). I and another guest were asked to make some impromptu remarks. The other guest went first. He spoke for about 15 minutes and had the whole wedding party in stitches. One girl in a striped shirt seemed particularly entertained. She laughed at everything he said, even if it wasn’t that funny. Some her family laughed a little harder so she wouldn’t look so weird. It was a tough act to follow. I opened my remarks by talking about Lancaster, California. Steve and I had served there together as missionaries. It was a difficult area, so I just dogged on it, pontificating about how much it sucked. I had been to an interfaith Thanksgiving devotional the week before with my grandmother and the speaker, Robert Kirby, was hilarious so I stole some of his lines. I used the bit about Lancaster CA being “the place where God practiced making people before He got good at it,” then added that “Lancaster was like Utah only flatter, deader, and no one seemed to like Mormons.” Steve seemed to like that one, but the striped shirt girl gave only half a chuckle. Turns out she was from Lancaster. Who knows how many other people in the wedding party were from Lancaster as well. Maybe that’s why they weren’t laughing. Oh well.

Getting married is a big deal for even the most apathetic lover, but the morning Steve was sealed to his eternal sweetie, it was a BIG DEAL. And I don’t mean that the wedding was some kind of silly, rococo, cupid fest. It was pretty classic, simple really. The ceremony was brief. The only time I felt awkward was when I asked Steve’s sister (recently returned from her ASL mission) how her mission was. I don’t have the space to give you a verbatim account, but I can sum up her response in two words “it sucked.” I don’t think less of her for not enjoying her mission. I sure didn't enjoy Lancaster. If what had happened to her had happened to me, I would have felt the same way. She got hit by a car, broke her wrist, and was pulled out of the ASL program. All the same I felt a little uneasy asking anymore details about why her mission stunk, seeing as we were inside of an LDS temple, so I tried to change the subject by suggesting we go outside for pictures.

Outside it was so cold my boogers froze. Pictures were taken as hastily as possible and the people not in the picture were huddled up in a blanket on the stairs like a family of temple square hobos. Despite the weather, I was happy to be there because I knew the value Steve placed on his marriage. It was something he cherished even before he met his spouse. Knowing this about Steve made the ceremony a real treat for me. Steve and his new wife haven’t known each other that long, so I hope she is ready for Steve’s flood of love. But if giving too much love and attention is the biggest issue the newly-weds face, they’ve got a pretty sweet set up. As long as Steve doesn’t try and knit is wife a “sassy snuggle suit,” or something, I am sure they’ll enjoy years of married bliss.

You too can be a Pirate

2007-11-21T14:24:00.001-08:00

So my J.D. Salinger impression is not the best. I am not sure I could ever be quite as pessimistic and cynical as Holden, and that is probably a good thing. Besides, there are much cooler ways to be anti-authority. Take Captain Paul Watson and his Whale Warriors. They are essentially PETA on steroids. These members of The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) take a boat down to Antarctica every year to hunt down Japanese whaling ships. The premise is simple enough: locate a whaling vessel and then ram it. The SSCS pirate boats are much smaller than the goliath whaling ships, so the activists mount a huge, sharpened piece of metal (affectionately called “the can opener”) to the bow of their ship. I must admit, for a moment I thought: “that sounds kind of fun.” After watching “Pirates of the Caribbean,” who wouldn’t want to be a pirate? I mean unless Hollywood is lying, I think it is safe to assume that the SSCS has a pet penguin in a state of living death that takes a corpse-like form whenever the moon light falls on it, and steals gold coins at every opportunity. However, being a pirate on the SSCS would entail lots of cold water and there is nothing I hate more in this world than cold water. Besides, I doubt I would get along with anyone zealous enough to die defending thousand pound bags of mercury laced blubber. Although I would never be passionate/stupid enough to actually volunteer as a pirate on one of Paul Watson’s ships, I wouldn’t mind wearing a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society t-shirt under my “Pencey Prep” sweat shirt.

If a body catch a body . . .

2007-11-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

Blogging for me has always functioned on a binge-purge cycle, kind of like failed diets. Well, it would be if I had ever felt the need to go on a diet. Obesity has just never been an issue for me. My cross to bear has always been one of a scrawnier sort, much less of the overweight, diabetic end of the spectrum and much more of the puny, picked-last-for-kickball side of things. Anyway the point is that with this blog, I am hoping to end the sporadic cycle and begin writing routine, weekly entries. Anything to try and give my course-less, on-call, dynamic schedule some kind of regular cadence.

In spite of the absence of any recognizable rhythm to my life, one of the advantages I have enjoyed as a result of graduation is the time to read things other than text books. I discovered “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and more recently rediscovered, “Catcher in the Rye.” I picked up the latter after remembering how much I felt like I identified with Holden Caulfield when I read the book back in high school. I liked the book even more this time around, but for different reasons, if you know what I mean. Maybe because this time I didn’t have to answer any phony chapter summary questions. I mean, who thinks that kind of stuff develops an appreciation for literature, really? If you’re going to read a book like “Catcher in the Rye,” tired chapter questions just make the whole experience aggravating. My teacher, Mrs. Canthon said the questions would “help our young, developing minds digest the material.” “Young minds.” Boy, that killed me. She was only five years older than I was. I swear, the only thing those questions did was annoy you so bad you wanted to puke. I was always resisting the urge to ask some crass question about what eventually happens to everything we “digest.” Perhaps the scatological part of the “digesting the material” analogy is where the “final exam” comes in. Of course I never asked it. You really need to be in the mood to say a sarcastic thing like that, and I was never in the mood. Besides high school is a hard enough place to have an intelligent conversation with anyone. Too many flits and inferiority complexes to deal with, and I’m not kidding. No surprise, I liked the book even more than I did the first time I read it. Basically, if you want to know the truth, the story kind of hits a hundred different frustrations until chapter twenty-five. Then in chapter twenty-five, it all pulls together splendidly with old Holden and his sister Phoebe and all. It was by far my favorite chapter, it really was. In that sense “Catcher in the Rye” is sort of like “Miracle of Forgiveness,” you have to get to the end to appreciate the book. Only thing is, “Catcher in the Rye” has a lot more cuss words and makes you want to get a sweat shirt with “Pencey Prep” printed on it in big red letters.

If Holden can get out of his rut, then hopefully I can get out of mine and over come this blogging indolence. I know it’ll be good for me, I really do. If nothing else, writing weekly blogs is good practice in discipline. Let’s face it, someday I’ll probably have to bear the heavy cross of high cholesterol and double chins and I’ll need all the discipline I can get. In the mean time though, I’ll just keep blogging on Sundays and eating ice cream for dinner. Weekly writing will help my young, developing mind and the ice cream will most likely be a positive move for my digestion.