Sometimes It pays to wreak havoc

I went golfing today.

...

Well, I went and walked around on some golf holes with other people. We had golf clubs, I'm fairly positive about that. But not clubs where people who know how to golf become members. The golf clubs that one associates with hitting (like other types of clubs: maces, baseball bats, etc.) things. Oh, I know that most people mentally link golf clubs with hitting golf balls. However, it doesn't have that connection for me yet. The other members of my party managed to make that connection on numerous occasions throughout the night, but I just swung my Neanderthal weapon in the air and proclaimed my masculinity by blaming other things, like the grass, for my failures. I think the other men in my tribe were convinced.

And in the end I managed to support my long standing opinion about golf. It is a social event. Hitting balls with those weapons takes skill, but talking and walking around with other people only takes other people who are also willing to walk around and talk. It's not like basketball where you can get noticeably better in the course of a game. When playing a round of golf you improve very slightly because you only hit the ball 3-4 times for each hole (I was playing scramble or else I would have had to hit the ball quite a bit more). But men like me hate just walking around talking. We need a goal, so we talk while heading to the next spot that someone will hit a ball. After complimenting, commiserating, or smack talking, we get back to the real reason that any of us are out on the golf course. Interacting in a social manner that fits our psyche.

Now we have evolved.

Entropy be damned

I have noticed of late a drifting of my energies away from that solid individual I have worked so hard to create. Now, though I do love to toot my own horn, I am not tooting my own horn. Maybe just a little. I am, instead, issuing a call to arms.

Let the trombones' fanfare echo in my heart as I lift myself from despair. Begone atrophy of body, mind, and spirit.

Up. Up, I say. Rise to face the day and do something. Because action is life, and inaction is the opposite of action. So, if inaction is the opposite of action and action is life, what does that make inaction.

I know that sometimes we've gotta wait by and see things move on their own (like children learning to ride a bike or something), but that's a choice. And choose is an action word. And that is how I roll.

It's on the bag

I've picked up a new hobby lately. I enjoy it about as much as I thought I might. Here's the lowdown. I go and visit local potential employers and ask them whether they accept resumes. If they do, I give them one of mine. If they don't, I ask for an application. But the fun doesn't end there. I also ask if the application is available online, but most potential employers tell me that up front.

Case in point: I went out to a job fair the other day and it was nearly a two hour drive. The only employer at the fair talked to me for a moment and said, "You can give us your paper resume, but it would be better to apply online." I have to say, I was under the impression that a job fair is all about meeting people in person, but I'm wrong often enough that I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again.

So, if you have any leads on jobs that require writing, teaching, or theatre (I know, it has an E on the end. Blame my schooling.), please let me know. I'd love to further my list of applications because, as a hobby, I like it.

Don't worry though, I know that when I say you, I'm really talking to me. This is like some otherworldly trick to get me to talk to myself some more. Well, I'm not falling for it this time Gribnebop. You'll have to try harder than that.

Love and Friendship

This morning I happened to be on the BYU campus and a student suggested a topic for my writing. I wasn't looking for a serious subject, I was only looking for two or three words to spawn a line of thought for a writing exercise. Just like in theatre, where improvisation exists as an exercising the skills commonly applied by talented artists, a writer sometimes will write without any forethought and perhaps stumble upon a muse resting beside a clump of birch. Every once in a while we will find this muse and the point of this exercise immediately becomes a mad rush to wake the muse before our onward rushing minds carry us beyond the effective range of our voices and we lose our chance at creating something extraordinary (or at least ordinary).

In writing, as in theatre, we very rarely stumble upon these muses, but we do find that we are inadvertently honing the skills we need to capture and wake our muses when the day finally comes when we do find them sleeping just where they were the last time we missed our chance.

But I'm not here to write about writing. I'm here to generally annoy people...I mean, I'm here to write about my thoughts...I mean, I'm here to write with the barest minimum of thought which may have the effect found at the beginning of this ludicrous and grammatically incorrect sentence. But that will only happen if I'm lucky.

So, BYU students once thought that BYU stored enough food to feed the whole student body in case of an emergency. When I heard that this morning I immediately thought of the LDS church's suggestion that each member store enough food for a year. I wondered where the food was stored. I hadn't seen any granaries nearby.

The student that I was talking to then informed me that BYU had stopped storing this large amount of food and required students to come up with their own storage. But wait, it's not as bad as it sounds. When said student mentioned food storage, she was talking about an emergency supply of food for a week and a 72 hour emergency kit.

Why shouldn't a college student be able to store a week's worth of food. I've been a college student. A one week supply of ramen noodles fits nicely in a cupboard. Any person intelligent enough to get to college ought to at least have the intelligence required to have enough food in case of an emergency. I know that isn't always the case, but I could do it, and I'm not even that smart.

Oh, well. It turns out that BYU doesn't, and never did have food stored for 33,000 students. That's just the food that they have on campus at any given time in the on campus kitchens, vending machines, and food court. So, it looks like this blog is once again pointless.

Thank goodness.

Moderation

I've created many a post in my time; Seventy, to be exact. But I don't think I'd call myself an expert.

But you should feel free to call me an expert if you want to. Because, in the end, what does it take to be an expert at blogging. If you can log your thoughts on the web then you have create a weB Log of your words. It's like writing dear diary, except in stead of writing to some future grandchild who will open up a dusty book they find in an attic, your audience is immediate. Not that a blog necessarily needs a large or immediate audience, but the possibility of immediate response is clearly present. I wonder how much like "Reality" TV that makes our blogs?

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoy running rampant through the hearts and minds of my friends, acquaintances, and strangers online. Some blogs even offer genuine insights into political, philosophical, or even religious questions.

Long live the blog, and longer live those who can find the good ones for me and send them to me in my email so that I don't have to look myself.

In other news, Ray Bradbury has recently been poked fun at because he doesn't like the internet. A few people say, "But isn't this the man who wrote Fahrenheit 451? He was almost prognostic in his description of future technology." I say to those people, "Read the book."

The internet allows for many connections, but we should never forget to feed the connections we already have to those who live off the screen and in our homes. Moderation in all things, my friends. Moderation in all things.

Except maybe Ice cream. Not frozen yogurt. The real stuff. Eating Ice Cream every day...that's some good living. Unless you are lactose intolerant, then I guess you can eat something else. But as for me and my house, we will eat Ice Cream. Or sorbet, or even sherbet, or yogurt, or pudding, or even Jell-o (TM). But most of all we eat ice cream. Yeah, I know. I shouldn't have capitalized it the first two times. It's not a proper noun. Sorry. Sometimes I get a little over excited.

Where was I thinking?

"Daaad." It's the petulant cry that any parent knows. "That's not a story!"

Yeah, he's right. Even my six year old son knows when a group of actions with a bit of dialogue fails to make a story.

I encountered this protest the other night when I was trying to calm my kids down. I often tell them stories that include strange characters and more than likely I will include their ideas. But this time "That's not a story!" fit perfectly.

I find it strangely satisfying that it's so easy to tell bad entertainment from good. Now, I almost wrote that it's easy to tell bad art from good (actually I wrote it and then erased it). But there is a real difference between art and entertainment. Just like friendly Mr. Square and Sir Rectangle, entertainment can be art, and art can be entertaining, but these two words are not synonyms. And more often than not you will find that art that moves your soul or inspires you to greater heights can bore most people to tears. Understanding art takes skill and training. Art is like a secret code to anyone who has read the right book. But some art, and I like to aim for this kind whenever possible, speaks to those who haven't read the right book as well as those who have.

Entertainment on the other hand, and all the art that falls into this category, lends itself to understanding from even six year old children who barely know how to add 6 and 20 (just so you know, that's 26).

So, that's not a story. We all know it, and sometimes we're willing, like the six year old, to hold the supposed story teller accountable. In fact, criticism comes easy. We all know when we come away from something unchanged. Art is an interpretation of life, and the secret behind life is that everyone in your audience has that trait...the being alive trait. So everyone is an expert. That makes my job hard, but it also makes it worth that much more when I recieve a different response like, "That story stinks."

Hey, at least it's a story.

Moderation in All things

The late spring sun strains against beige window blinds to force warm lazy light through a western facing window. Heat resonates from the blinds as they block the attack. To the north, the window blinds sit half turned to allow the less offensive indirect light. In front of the northern window a short book case struggles to contain books whose titles range from Rights of Man to Lord of the Rings to Winnie-the-Pooh's Baby Book. In the cramped corner between these two windows I find myself typing on seven year old keys atop a fifty to sixty year old sewing desk.

The top of the desk, once used to hold fabric and pins, now barely contains the struggle for space between a great white monitor and a now defunct color ink-jet printer. With desktop space at a premium, I hold the keyboard in my lap. The desk was designed before the advent of personal computers, but seems very forward looking in matters of size. I sit, dreaming of a slim new monitor and laser printer. While dreaming, I imagine a larger bedroom or even a larger house.

Piles upon piles of paperwork find themselves precariously perched atop stools, dressers, and shoes. The struggle for neatness feels futile against the encroaching wood pulp avalanche.

Somewhere inside this already stuffed space I find myself. Within these cramped walls I find scraps of paper filled with notes written from every direction. Inspiration filled shreds stand as wardens against insanity. Symbols of a forthcoming masterpiece, works in progress. All hoping to find ultimate and final fruition on a folding chair less than 7 inches from my bed.

And thus it began

Billy's knee jerked, and he looked around cautiously. His right kneecap always tickled when someone was about to pass gas. It wasn't a particularly useful prognosticative talent, but it had saved him a bit of olfactory discomfort more than once.

Just as he suspected, Billy's older brother, Reginald, rounded the corner masticating in content. In his hands lay the uneaten half of a chili burrito. The other half hung screaming and clamoring from his mouth.

The longest post ever

Sometimes salty kisses are the best kind of kisses.

It's here

I am finally teaching. Okay, I'm really substitute teaching, but it's long term because the regular teacher is on maternity leave.

Up until now, I have been observing a student teacher because state law requires that if the teacher is gone a substitute be in the classroom even if the student teacher does all of the teaching; which was the case for me.

But now. Now I am teaching all on my own.

Wish me luck.