Shorthand

Who wants to learn shorthand? If you ask me, it could be the new pager code. Well, maybe not. But it might be more practical, if not nearly as cool.

Pie

I was thinking earlier that I've had enough experiences involving pies recently (as well as over the course of my life) that I could write a decent blog entry on the subject. The pies include:

Pumpkin
Apricot
Strawberry Rhubarb
Pecan
Some kind of Cranberry with cream...
Chess
Blueberry
Vanilla Cream (small and half)
Aunt Maureen's Chocolate Pie
Key Lime (x3 + )

But right now I kind of think that this is neither the time nor the place...

One of the best days of my life

Today isn't yet over, but I expect by the end it will still be one of the best days of my life.

In sacrament meeting today, I sat next to Stanley, who's in the Elders quorum presidency. He asked me to play the piano for our priesthood meeting. The hymn was 322, Come All Ye Sons of God. (He had it written down as Come All Thy Sons of God.) This isn't an hymn that I've played a lot, but I'm pretty sure I've played it a couple of times in the past. So I wasn't too worried about playing it without practicing in advance.

As announcements were being made at the opening of the priesthood meeting, I decided I probably ought to open the lid a bit on the baby grand piano in the chapel, because a musical number that had been played on it earlier was a little quiet with the lid closed. And this was supposed to be kind of a rousing song, and I was also a little afraid that people wouldn't know it well, so quiet piano wouldn't help them sing with confidence. So I opened the lid.

We got to the hymn, and I thought it went fine. There's one spot that was a little tricky for me, and I had to improvise a little leaving out a couple of notes, but overall it went fine. There were two things that could have been better - I couldn't see the kid who was leading the music very well, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to speed things up, slow them down, or if he just didn't know how to conduct music very well. In trying to look around the lid to see him and follow the music that I didn't know very well, I decided maybe it was the third, so I just ignored him and played at what I felt was a reasonable tempo. The other thing that could have been improved was the singing, which seemed kind of weak and disengaged. Like maybe most people didn't know the song very well. I tried to play with gusto to encourage a similar response from the congregation, but I didn't get it. Neither of these two things bothered me too much, but they could have been improved.

But this was the best, or possibly second best part of the story: The instructor who gave the lesson today in Elders quorum began by apologizing for the hymn, which he said he chose - he had hoped for a rousing priesthood song. And he pointed at me (I was on the front row) and said, "It wasn't your fault that it was so slow," which got a decent laugh, at least from me and my friends sitting right behind me. I'm pretty sure if it was anyone's fault, it was mine, because I had chosen to ignore the conductor. (I'm still fairly confident that he wasn't trying to speed things up, but if he was then it was even more my fault.) The instructor mentioned how songs at devotionals just really drag, and that this hymn had felt that way. I felt a little bad that he'd felt it had dragged, but really I thought the tempo was fine so I enjoyed the way he pretty directly criticized me by trying not to criticize me.

A little later he asked me to read something, and pointed at me and said, "Piano player..." searching for my name. Robbie then sent me a note (written in pager code) saying that he and Greg are now going to call me piano player.

This is possibly the best, or second best part of the story: After the meeting ended, the 1st counselor in our bishopric, who's a really nice older man, came up to me and made sure I understood how much he appreciated my piano playing, and he thought it was a fine tempo. And he told me about his nephew who plays piano and asked me some questions about what I like to play, and said I need to make sure I don't neglect other aspects of my life, which was his lead-in to ask, "How's your dating life?" I told him I'm not an avid dater.

And then the executive secretary in the ward (who's an excellent pianist) came up to me and told me he thought I'd played the hymn just fine. And later the Bishop told me he'd liked how I played the hymn.

I think it was just those three, though there may well have been another person who said about the same thing. If I'd been hurt by the instructor's remark, these comments would have been incredibly appreciated and helpful. Because I wasn't, they were incredibly appreciated, if not necessarily helpful. It's nice to have such nice people around. This could be an indication that people see me as insecure - I'm generally not.

This played a small role in making the day so great. Another thing that was enjoyable was in our ward choir when the director told the basses to bring out one part where we had a slightly different rhythm, and told us to sing as loud as we could. I didn't, but I did sing out loud enough on that one distinct note that she looked up and laughed each time.

This reminds me of high school orchestra - every now and then Mrs. Larsen, the director, would tell the violas to play out in a part of a song. It was my goal to make sure that that never happened without her later telling us to tone it down just a bit. I was generally successful. I can't claim that I played viola particularly well in terms of tone, but I can claim that I played viola particularly loudly if I felt like it. We recorded a tape to send to Knott's Berry Farm before we played there on our "tour." (We played out in a barn where no one ever went, and our audience consisted entirely of our high school marching band which we accompanied on this tour. We didn't play anywhere else.) Mrs. Larsen played the tape back for us, and I could be heard above all the violins combined. This can be explained not only by my exceptional loudness, but also by the exceptional weakness of our violins. And by the fact that one of the two microphones used to record us was hanging about three feet above me.

Two not entirely unrelated items

The first item to which I refer in the title is the story of my first date.

The second is pager code. Last night on a whim I decided to learn pager code provided that Robbie would do the same. He agreed, and by now we're practically experts. Any one who wants to be cool should also learn pager code. My understanding is that pager code was invented to make something like text messaging possible with pagers. It's a list of numbers that represent letters. The only complicated part (once you've learned your alphabet) is that letters aren't separated within words, and there's some overlap. For example, 11111111 could be wwu, wuiu, wuvu, iwwi, vuuv, iiiiiiii, viwu, etc. And 177177 could be illnt, njm, itlmj, etc. I've also noticed that so far, we've kind of ignored punctuation. 8117 865156774, 969312 5003 15 11164 700 5007.

This is what happened on my first date:

This is what happened before my first date:

This girl (for this blog I'll call her "Maryn") came up to me during lunch at my high school one day in October 2002. She asked if I wanted to go with her to Masquerade (which was traditionally a girl's choice dance). I maybe acted a little taken back, because I was, but said sure. She asked if I wouldn't like to think it over for a day before I made any commitments. So I said sure. And the next day she asked if I'd thought it over, and I guess I sort of had, but really there wasn't much about which to think, and so arrangements were made for the date.

This is what happened on my first date:

I remember that I was wearing dark brown pants and a green shirt, because my sister told me I looked like a tree. I don't think she meant it as a compliment, but maybe subconsciously she was thinking about that poem "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree." And Maryn picked me up, and didn't mention trees. We were with one other couple, and were to meet up with a larger group at another girl's home. We got there, and no one was around, so Maryn found the back door was unlocked and let us in. This was a slightly uncomfortable situation, sitting around in this home that we'd entered questionably, but it got much worse when the parents of the girl for whom we were waiting showed up. They seemed rather surprised to see us, but were kind enough to let us explain that we were waiting for their daughter who was already nearly an hour late. Finally, and I'm not sure how because this was before cellular telephones were in such widespread use, we got in contact with the missing girl and discovered that she'd forgotten that they were supposed to meet us and had already gone off and begun the major activities of the evening. It was Masquerade, so for costumes we were supposed to go buy random stuff from DI. They'd already finished this, we hurried and got some ridiculous stuff, then went to dinner at someone else's home - they'd ordered pizzas, but because we were more than an hour late, there were about three slices left for the four of us. Maryn excused herself and I chatted with a friend, explaining when he asked about my costume that I didn't realize we were supposed to dress up. (I was wearing a quasi-terrible knit Halloween vest and some semi-ugly pants.) And when I went outside to find my date, I discovered that she was recovering from a crying spell, being comforted by another girl. I guess things were going poorly enough that she felt bad. I tried (but not effectively) to help her feel better. This was probably the most difficult moment of the evening for me, because I felt really sorry for her, but didn't know what to do.

The low point of the evening for her was yet to come, however. We were driving somewhere (I'm not sure where) and following behind the girl who had earlier abandoned us. We had to make a left turn onto SR 198 between Spanish Fork and Salem, and as the lead vehicle pulled out, Maryn took advantage of the small break in traffic to follow closely. But the first car (a Bronco) stalled and we rear-ended them. Luckily, the bronco's trailer hitch hit the center of our license plate, and folded the plate in half, but there was no other contact between the vehicles. Maryn's dad hadn't wanted to let her drive, and had made her promise to be careful, so she was terrified of the consequences of this incident. We went to another girl's home, and her brother used a hammer to try and flatten out the license plate so it wouldn't look so bad.

The dance itself was kind of boring - none of us really felt like dancing after all that. I don't know that I've ever really felt like dancing. So we sat around for a little while, danced a couple songs because it seemed imperative, and then we took off. We got Frostys from Wendy's, and went home. I had a fantastic time, I really couldn't stop laughing, though I tried to because I felt bad for Maryn, but really, it was kind of hilarious.

Now I'll repeat that story, but in pager code:

657116774, 1 1110177.

See how much more concise that is? And way too cool.

Probably not really blog appropriate

Apologies to those who have been impressed by the consistency of theme in this blog, but this post is now necessary.

In my high school, the yearbook staff would conduct a survey of seniors each year to name the "most-____"/"best-____"/"etc.-_____" students in the class. For example, my older brother won the "best-sideburns" award. I've got friends who were named "biggest brown noser" or "most-smartest." Other categories included "most likely to multiply and replenish the earth" or "best polished gun." I can't be certain that I didn't just make up that last one, but I'm 99% sure that I did.

When I was a senior, I had a certain reputation. "Diffident with the ladies" is how one friend put it at the time. More recently, another friend described it as "not an avid dater." I figure anyone who is reading this probably recognizes that both of those statements are putting things mildly. Because of this, someone (my memory could be wrong on this one - and I'm not sure if I ever knew the entire story - but my feeling is that it was Mary Wollenzien) decided it would be funny if I won "biggest-flirt." And Mary, being on the yearbook staff, made sure to tell everyone to put me down for that category as they voted. Apparently, this was effective enough that I won. Either that or they lied and claimed I won any way.

You might think that I could have reacted negatively to this. You'd never vote for a self-conscious kid with a bad stutter for "best public speaker." But I couldn't have reacted negatively because I knew that this was all only done with the best on intentions. And, though I'm a little self-conscious about my speech (I went to a speech pathologist in elementary school because I couldn't pronounce my "s"s well [and though I've improved, I still wonder if I don't have a bit of a lisp that no one {out of kindness} mentions]), I don't stutter. So I just laughed at the biggest flirt thing as much as everyone else, if not more.

The sad part of this story is that for each category, they had a male winner and a female winner. And I had to go get my picture taken with my female counterpart for the yearbook, and she was in tears. She won because she really was a flirt, but felt really bad that people felt that way about her. (I think she also had a boyfriend, and she didn't think he'd be too happy with her receiving this honor.)

I was also told that I had received the most votes for "most-smartest" [sic] but that there was a rule that any individual could only win in one category, and the year book staff decided I should win the "biggest-flirt" award. I don't know if this is true (it could be, I had a reputation for more than just being really shy), it kind of has the feel of something someone might make up to make sure I didn't feel bad.

Anyway, this label is one that has brought me untold grief ever since. And all of it (100.00%) has come from my youngest brother. The same one who ate all the gumballs.

This is the explanation.

Five years ago today

I don't remember the actual date. It would be easy to look up. But it was in October of 2003, and it was the day of the BYU Homecoming Parade. As was today. So I'll claim it was five years ago today. This is what was significant about that day:

Unlike today, I went to watch the parade with my family. I was living in the Deseret Towers (may they rest in peace) at the time, and walked down to the arboretum where my family typically has gone to watch the parade. I don't know if they were at the arboretum this year, or if they even went at all because I didn't think about it until too late, and they never contacted me to see if I wanted to join them, so maybe they didn't go? I'll have to clear this up with them shortly. But as I was walking past the Law building, I remember distinctly thinking that time did not matter on this day. I don't think I was wearing a watch. My reason for this will be made clear shortly. But I remember thinking, "there are days when time matters, but this isn't one of them," or possibly, "today, unlike some other days, time doesn't matter." I really don't remember the exact words that I thought, see, but I remember the overall idea of the thoughts that I had while walking past the law building. It was overcast or early, probably overcast because it wouldn't have been very early. And the leaves on the trees near the law building had changed from green to yellow, meaning that they were yellow on this particular day. After the parade, I went shopping with my family. I'm sure at least two (probably three) of my brothers were there, as was my mom. I'm not sure about the rest of the family. My sister would have gone, in all likelihood. We went to K-mart. I think it was the Provo K-mart, though it could have been Spanish Fork. $50 says it was Provo. And of all things, I decided to buy a watch. Which didn't seem out of the ordinary at the time - I needed a new one. The band had broken on the old watch, so I kept it in my pocket. Then the face got crushed. It was plastic instead of glass. Glass would probably have been crushed just as easily. So I needed a new watch. But it wasn't until a little later that it struck me as unusual that I should buy a watch on the very day in which time didn't matter. I chose one with a silver band and a dark blue face. Acqua brand, with indiglo function. I'm wearing it as I type. I haven't had to change the battery in the last five years. I didn't wear this watch for a few months in Argentina for fear that I would get robbed. (I did get robbed once while I wasn't wearing this watch, and the punks would have certainly taken it if I had been). But I kept it by my bed and used it to check the time whenever I woke up during the night and wondered what time it was. This is where the indiglo function became very useful. I recently wore it while camping in Guatemalan subtropical forests. Our only water supply (other than the huge amount of rain that fell essentially every night) was the Usumacinta river. We swam in the river to bathe. The first day I did this, I forgot to take off my watch. It says it's water resistant to 30 meters. Apparently water resistant has nothing to do with keeping water from filling the inside of the watch. So until I left Guatemala, really, there were droplets of water inside the face of the watch that made it difficult to read, especially when it got hot (all the time) - the water inside the watch would heat up and evaporate, but wouldn't escape and would just turn to kind of a fog on the inside of the glass. After this the indiglo function quickly dimmed until it stopped working all together. Then after a couple of weeks the watch finally stopped keeping time. I took the back off the watch when I returned to Utah to let things dry out, and intended to buy a new battery. But after a day or two I reassembled things and the watch returned to life. Even the indiglo function. And to this moment, it still runs just fine.

So even though time didn't matter when I bought this watch five years ago today, time did matter today. I checked the watch several times. Usually because I was late. And because I wasn't sure if I should leave the beekeeping class early. I was glad that I didn't. Some of the best information came at the end, and there wouldn't have been a telephone for me to conduct political surveys if I'd arrived at my next stop any earlier. Also, I needed to know when to take my next cold-eeze lozenge. I've heard more than one person swear by these drops. I got a cold on the banks of the Usumacinta and took them and was well sooner than anyone else. So I'm counting on similar results this time around.



The above-mentioned rain:

A love song

I was told to write a love song. This was in May of 2003. This is what I wrote:


Dead Plums hang from
a dead branch, and there
is a freezer full of ashes buried in my back yard.

They hang there, as though
they might fall without
notice, just drop to the
ground, falling far enough
to destroy any desirable
quality they might have had.

And they might not
have had any such
quality.

But they won't fall.
They will hang on that
dead branch inexorably,
and inexorably, inscrutably, intolerably,
you
will desire them.

Tenacity binds them
to the branch and to you.

If only I were as tenacious.
If only I were among the ashes.


The story behind this is a very long one. I could write a novel and still not explain it thoroughly. (Theoretically speaking, of course - I don't know that I could really write a novel at all, other than by copying and pasting. There was nothing in the rules against copying and pasting. And I was the original author of everything copied and everything pasted. [This is another long story, and a very sad one if you ever read the novel that came out of it.])

These are the final paragraphs (with some slight edits and omissions) of that "novel":

As I was walking home, I thought maybe a car would hit me and kill me. Or maybe the bus could have been involved in an accident earlier. And either way I would die. I imagined that you would read the paper in the morning and see something about my accident, and you would come to my funeral and would cry...

As I was walking home, I thought maybe a car would hit me and kill me. Or maybe the bus could have been involved in an accident earlier. And either way I would die. I imagined that you would read the paper in the morning and see something about my accident. And you would be surprised and shocked and would think for a moment about how fragile life is.

And this is the logo I won for "finishing" my novel:


I titled it Self-Portrait as a Day Dream. The subtitle is "A cut-and-paste novel mostly never to be read." I've read everything in it, but not every time that it all appears. That's the benefit of cutting and pasting. You write one page, and with a few clicks, suddenly you have fifty. The rules never said anything about not cutting and pasting. Or copying and pasting. Which is really more what I did. It all had a purpose, though, in theory - the idea of repetition with small changes here and there.

Anyone who reads this 'blog entry' is welcome to ask for a copy of the novel. I'll probably turn them down. But I will write a novel about the love song for anyone who wants it. This is the advantage of a blog about rounders with visqueen. I can make any offer and not worry that anyone will take me up on it.

Found item of potential interest

I found this in a bag of clothes that my brother was giving to charity:




As far as I can tell, 'Night Stalkers' doesn't have any meaning in any culture other than the obvious one. Hopefully this was just a poor translation. This link leads to a loosely related item of potential interest.

Smile

There are times when I can't remember something, and it bothers me until I remember it. For example, tonight I was trying to remember the last name of a missionary with whom I lived for a couple months. After a couple minutes of thinking, I remembered just his first name. This was a little strange because I never called him by his first name. Also, his first name doesn't really suit him. I remembered his last name maybe half an hour later: Contreras.

Other things that have bothered me when I couldn't remember them:

- The word "vigilante." I spent several hours trying to remember that word one day in June (probably) 2006.

- What book it was that I'd read recently in which the narrator describes herself as "intense." That one kept coming back to haunt me off and on for a few days, though it didn't bother me constantly the way Elder Contreras or vigilante did. I did remember in the end when I couldn't stop trying to remember for a few minutes. It was Growing Anyway Up by Florence Parry Heide. I bought this book for my mom for Christmas last year, and read it over the break during the week that we were essentially without power (electrical). Part of the reason that I couldn't remember this book for a while is that I was expecting it to be something that I'd read more recently.

(This book is part of a story about Christmas gifts. Last year, I got this book for my mom, The Bigness Contest for my younger brother Evan, Tales For the Perfect Child for my older brother Nathan, and Fables You Shouldn't Pay Any Attention to for my sister Ellen. All of these were written by Florence Parry Heide [you may know her as the author of Treehorn Times Three. The last paragraph of the Wikipedia article about her is fascinating.] And actually, I may have the books reversed with Ellen and Nathan's gifts. But my mom had a similar idea and got Tales For the Perfect Child for William and Some Things are Scary [but in Spanish: ¡Qué horror! - also by Mrs. Heide] for me. And maybe one other? Possibly for Adam? Luckily, there was no overlap in giving the same book to the same person. A second interesting, probably absolutely remarkable story about Christmas gifts has to do with Billikens. These are luckier if stolen than if given as gifts.)

- For maybe a week last month I kept seeing in my mind the face of an actress who looks maybe tired or serious, then smiles briefly in a really sympathetic/kind sort of a way, and then drops the smile. I thought this might have been from a movie I'd seen, or a television show. I don't know how many times or for how many hours I tried to remember where I'd seen this smile. And then I remembered - it's from the Multigrain Cheerios commercial that they've been running recently and which I really think is kind of a poor commercial.

- One night, in a dream, I was talking with someone and couldn't remember the word for a scientist who studies insects. The only thing that came to me in this dream was optometrist, and I knew that that wasn't right. So I didn't sleep well that night because I kept half-waking up trying to remember the word. When I did wake up in the morning, I had to pause and focus and I remembered it right away, which was a relief. (If you see the glass as half-empty, you're a pessimist. If you see it as half-full, you're an optimist. And if you see the glass through lenses that you prescribed yourself, then you're an optometrist. [This came from the David Letterman show.])